Abstract
We report two psychophysical experiments that investigate a visual illusion that is considered common knowledge among type designers, but has never been studied scientifically. Specifically, the thickness of a horizontal line is overestimated in relation to that of a vertical line. Experiment 1 confirmed the existence of the illusion. In Experiment 2, we replicated the effect and showed that the illusion is closely related to the vertical-horizontal illusion, in which the length of a vertical line is overestimated in comparison to a horizontal one. Both the overestimation of thickness and length is larger when the stimulus is surrounded by a horizontally elongated frame, as opposed to a vertically elongated frame. We discuss potential explanations for the thickness illusion and its relation to the vertical-horizontal illusion.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 1 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-11 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Vision (Switzerland) |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 4 Jan 2019 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Mar 2019 |
Funding
Funding: This work was supported by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), Vici grant 453-16-002 to CNLO. The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Keywords
- Illusion
- Orientation
- Perception
- Vision