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I am 21 years old and a fifth-year Software Engineering student at Universidad Nacional de Colombia. I enjoy creating Full-stack applications. I have in-depth knowledge of the MERN technology stack, and I have experiecen with cloud computing on AWS and microservice architecture. Passionate about learning new cutting-edge tools such as machine learning and data science.
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The Muller-Lyer illusion is a well-known optical illusion in which two lines of the same length appear to be of different lengths. The illusion was first created by a German psychologist named Franz Carl Muller-Lyer in 1889.
Check out the optical ilusion by yourself. You can change the lenght or click on the button to show guides.
In the image above, which line appears the longest? For most people, the line with the fins of the arrow protruding outward appears to be the longest while the line with the arrow fins pointing inwards appears shorter. While your eyes might tell you that line in the middle is the longest, the shafts of both lines are exactly the same length.
Research has shown that perception of the Müller-Lyer illusion can vary, as W. H. R. Rivers noted that indigenous people of the Australian Murray Island were less susceptible to the Müller-Lyer illusion than were Europeans. Rivers suggested that this difference may be because Europeans live in more rectilinear environments than the islanders.
The illusion has become the subject of considerable interest and different theories have emerged to explain the phenomenon. Nevertheless, all of them agree that this is a cognitive illusion. Specifically, it falls into the Geometrical-optical (or distorting) illusions category.
This theory was proposed by psychologist Richard Gregory. This illusion occurs because of a misapplication of size constancy scaling by our own brain. In most cases, size constancy allows us to perceive objects in a stable way by taking distance into account.
In the three-dimensional world, this principle allows us to perceive a tall person as tall whether they are standing next to us or off in the distance. When we apply this same principle to two-dimensional objects, Gregory suggests, errors can result.
In this case, the visual system learns that the "angles in" configuration corresponds to an rectilinear object, such as the corner of a room, which is closer, and the "angles out" configuration corresponds to an object which is far away.
An alternative explanation proposed by R. H. Day suggests that the Muller-Lyer illusion occurs because of conflicting cues. Our ability to perceive the length of the lines depends on the actual length of the line itself and the overall length of the figure. Since the total length of one figure is longer than the length of the lines themselves, it causes the line with the outward-facing fins to be seen as longer.