Illusory contour perception in domestic dogs
- PDF / 642,599 Bytes
- 9 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 67 Downloads / 239 Views
BRIEF REPORT
Illusory contour perception in domestic dogs Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere 1
&
Philippe A. Chouinard 1 & Tiffani J. Howell 1 & Pauleen C. Bennett 1
# The Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2019
Abstract One way to better understand how animals visually perceive their environment is to assess the way in which visual information is interpreted and adapted based on preconceptions. Domestic dogs represent a unique species in which to evaluate visual perception as recent findings suggest they may differ from humans and other animal species in terms of their susceptibility to geometric visual illusions. Dogs have demonstrated human-like, reversed, and null susceptibility depending on the type of illusion. To further evaluate how dogs perceive their environment, it is necessary to perform additional assessments of visual perception. One such assessment is the perceptual filling-in of figures, which may be invoked when presented with illusory contours. Six dogs were assessed on their perception of the Ehrenstein illusory contour illusion in a two-choice size-discrimination task. Dogs, as a group, demonstrated equivocal perception of illusory contours. Some individual dogs, however, demonstrated human-like perception of the subjective contours, providing preliminary evidence that this species is capable of perceiving illusory contour illusions, thereby improving the current understanding of canine visual perception capabilities. Additional assessments using alternative illusory contour illusions are needed to clarify these results and identify features that underpin the individual differences observed. Keywords Dog . Ehrenstein . Illusion . Perception . Illusory contour
Introduction Visual perception represents an inventive process. Not only does the brain receive information from a visual scene from the retina, but it also interprets this information and adapts it to fit preconceptions (Gregory, 2015). Therefore, the perception of a visual scene may not accurately reflect reality but instead the most likely scene based on an individual’s previous experiences (Kandel & Schwartz, 2000). It is in these instances that misperceptions can occur: When mechanisms that are generally helpful for accurately perceiving the environment trick the brain into applying preconceptions to visual information to represent the most likely visual scene. Illusory contours represent one such type of misperception. These are experienced when individuals recognise and mentally complete figures or shapes that are missing connective contours (Kanizsa, 1974). The process makes use of available
* Sarah-Elizabeth Byosiere [email protected] 1
School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, P.O. Box 199, Bendigo, Victoria 3552, Australia
information such as foreground/background brightness, color, and textures, so that when an object in its entirety is incomplete, the missing components are imagined. One example of an illusory contour, initially described by Schumann (1900), is the Ehrenstein illusion (Ehrenstein, 1987) (see later i
Data Loading...
