Here ’s The First Evidence That Even Lizards Succumb To Optical Illusions

By Emma Young
It’s been known for centuries that we experience all kinds of optical illusions, and in the past few decades, researchers have shown that some animals, including monkeys, pigeons, and dogs, do too. Now the first ever study of this kind in reptiles has found that even the bearded dragon falls for an optical illusion that we humans succumb to.
Perceptual illusions — subjective interpretations of physical information — are interesting to psychologists because they reveal important insights into how we construct our representations of the world. This new work, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, provides evidence that at least one reptile can be counted among the animals don’t simply passively process retinal signals, but actively interpret visual data, too.

Maria Santacà, at the University of Padova and colleagues used the Delboeuf illusion in their new study. Look at the image below: both black circles are identical. But most people will under-estimate the size of the one with a bigger white background and over-estimate the size of the other, leading them to report that former looks smaller.
The Delboeuf illusion, via Santacà et al (2019)

Recent studies of capuchin monkeys showed that they make the same mistake. And in tests in which the black circles were replaced with identical portions of food, so too did chimpanzees: when given a choice, they generally opted for the circular food portion with less space around it. (In fact, ...

Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - December 9, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: BPS Research Digest Tags: Comparative Illusions Perception Source Type: blogs