Perception-action and the Müller-Lyer illusion: amplitude or endpoint bias?

Over the past decade there has been a great deal of controversy regarding the relative impact of visual illusions on cognitive judgments and the control of goal-directed action. We report the results of two experiments indicating that perceptual biases associated with the Müller-Lyer illusion involve a misjudgment of amplitude/extent while aiming biases involve error in the specification of a movement endpoint. This dissociation of perception and action is consistent with some aspects of Milner and Goodale’s two visual system model, but not others.

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