MULLER – LYER EXPERIMENT

Krishnapriya Painku
2023000840

Introduction
Illusion is the difference between one’s perception of an object or event
viewed under various situations. The exposure to stimuli, the
environment in which they are presented, and the experiential context
may all vary.

Types of illusion

Optical illusions: Another name for optical illusions are visual illusions,
when the images that are experienced by the sense of sight are typically
false or misleading, leading to errors in perception.

Auditory Illusions : False impressions of an actual sound or external

stimulation are known as auditory illusions. These deceptive impressions
are comparable to optical illusions in that the listener perceives sounds
that are either absent from the stimuli or noises that shouldn’t be feasible
given the conditions surrounding their creation.

Tactile illusion: When an object’s perceived quality through touch does

not appear to match the actual stimulation, this is known as a tactile
illusion.
Muller-Lyer illusion
The Muller-Lyer illusion is an optical illusion where two lines of the
same length appear to be of different lengths.
Franz Carl Muller-Lyer, a German sociologist, created the first version
of the test in 1889. Muller-Lyer’s initial test used a “arrow” figure with
obtuse wings on one end of the line and acute wings on the other, though
the illusion eventually changed to the one mentioned above. Next, the
patients were asked to indicate where the arrow’s halfway was. They
generally chose a midway that was toward the “tail” end of the arrow,
which is in line with the idea that acute wings shorten the line’s length
and obtuse wings lengthen it.

The depth cue explanation theory, which postulates that our perception
of the two shafts’ depths is dependent on depth cues, lends support to the
Muller-Lyer illusion. We perceive the line as sloping away like a
building’s corner when the fins are pointing inward toward the shaft of
the line. We see the line as being shorter because of this depth cue,
which makes it appear farther away. It resembles the slope of a room
more when the fins are facing outward and away from the line. We
interpret the line as being longer because of this depth cue, which makes
it appear closer.
R. H. Day proposed another theory, stating that conflicting cues cause
the Müller-Lyer illusion to happen. The real length of the line as well as
its overall length determine how long it can be seen to be. Since the total
length of one figure is longer than the length of the lines themselves, it
causes us to see the line with the outward-facing fins as longer

Aim: The impact of the Muller-Lyer illusion on line length estimation in

relation to standard length

Hypothesis:
A) Due to Muller illusion effect, there are chances of overestimation
of line compared to standard line.

B) There is no significant relation between mean of incoming and

mean of outgoing.

Method
Participants: The experiment was conducted on 11 participants from a
age range of 20 to 30 with undergraduate qualification. Total 40 trials
were taken from each participant to collect the data.

Material used:
o Muller-Lyer Apparatus: It consist of wooden board attached to
two iron rods on a stand. The board is detachable and adjustable
from the rods.
o Writing Materials

Procedure:
The participant was asked to sit comfortably and Rapport was
established. The Muller-Lyer board was adjusted to eye level of
participant. The instructions and variables were directed to participants.

Instructions:
Please be comfortable seated. This is a visual illusion experiment. A
horizontal block with a drawn horizontal line can be seen. There are
arrow heads and tails on the lines. Additionally, a moveable bar is
attached to the block.
Your part is to adjust the movable bar accordingly that the length of
variable line is equal to length of standard line.
There will be 4 conditions in this experiment they are right outgoing, left
outgoing, right incoming and left incoming. 10 trials will be taken on
each condition .
o In right outgoing condition the bar is moved outwardly towards
right.
o In left outgoing condition the bar is moved outwardly towards left.
o In right incoming condition the bar is moved inwards towards
right.
o In left incoming condition the bar is moved inwards towards left.

Precautions:
o The distance between apparatus and participant should be constant
o The board should be adjusted according to eye level of participant

Analysis:
Two tests are conducted based on the data collected from participants
Paired sample test :In this test two variables are compared and estimated
to calculate differences. It is also known as dependent test
Descriptive test: Here the PSE, constant error, space error, movement
error, fatigue error and standard deviation is analysed.

Results :
The result consist of the mean of incoming, mean of outgoing, PSE,
Constant error, Space error, Movement error, Fatigue error

T - Test
Mean of incoming = 13.51182
Mean of outgoing = 13.2859

Mean of Point of subjective equality (PSE) = 12.88064

Mean of standard deviation = 15

Mean of constant error = -2.11936

Mean of Space error = -0.34864

Mean of Movement error = 0.03427

Mean of Fatigue error = 1.6064

Discussion
The aim of the experiment was to find the impact of the Muller-Lyer
illusion on line length estimation in relation to standard length . In this
experiment the participant is asked to adjust the length of variable line
accordingly that it is equal to the length of standard line. There were 11
participants aged from 20 to 30 with undergraduate qualification. Total
40 trials were conducted on each participant. The experiment was
conducted on four conditions: right outgoing, left outgoing, right
incoming and left incoming. 10 trials were conducted on each condition.
This was done to calculate the effect of Muller lyer illusion on the visual
perception of individual. It was hypothesised that the participant would
overestimate the length of variable line when compared to standard line.
Another hypotheses was there is no significant relation between mean of
incoming and mean of outgoing.
By analysing the result of first hypotheses the mean of PSE is 12.88064
less than the standard length that is 15. Also the constant error is –
2.11936 (negative). The data obtained show that that the participant has
underestimated the length of variable line when compared to the length
of standard line. Hence the result is contradicting the hypothesis. This
occurrence maybe because the participants were prior exposed to the
experiment and therefore there is a possibility of bias and it may have
led to underestimation.
An explanation for the underestimation is the Perceptual Contraction
Theory according to this theory by psychologist Richard Gregory, the
Muller-Lyer illusion’s outward-pointing arrowheads lead the line to
appear to compress perceptually. People believe a line segment with
outward-pointing arrowheads to be shorter than an identical segment
with inward-pointing arrowheads when they are experiencing the
Muller-Lyer illusion. The brain sees the arrowheads as indicators of a
converging perspective, as though the line is vanishing into the distance,
according to the Perceptual Contraction Theory. The illusion’s
underestimate is caused by the shrinkage of the seen line length brought
about by this supposed convergence.
In the analysis of second hypotheses, the p-value is 0.399 it is greater
than 0.05. Therefore it is clear that there is no significant relation
between mean of incoming and mean of outgoing. Here the hypothesis is
accepted.

Conclusion
In this experiment the aim was to study of the impact of the Muller-Lyer
illusion on line length estimation in relation to standard length. In
conclusion participants underestimated the length of variable line in
comparison to standard line and there is no significant relation between
mean of incoming and mean of outgoing