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While various studies have related susceptibility to the Mueller-Lyer illusion to mental health, to developmental maturity, and to self-differentiation, there have been no studies in which susceptibility to the illusion has been related to a wide spectrum of self-concept dimensions. It is one of the purposes of the present study to analyze susceptibility to the Mueller-Lyer illusion as a function of errors in self-perception. To the extent that an individual suffers conflicts with regard to his self-concept, in any of its significant dimensions, it is expected that he will suffer a greater susceptibility to the illusion.

Esta Tese tem como tema a problemática do fim do antigo ethos e o ocaso das ilusões no mundo moderno com base na reflexão de Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) sobre os seus efeitos nefastos. Tal reflexão considera também a problemática da barbárie moderna e pressupõe, igualmente, as formas anteriores da barbárie: a primitiva e a medieval. Na presente investigação não se retorna à questão da ideia de uma filosofia leopardiana ou de uma proposta de sistema no seu interior, pois não se trata, quer da antiga querela de um Leopardi poeta ou filósofo quer de uma exposição pormenorizada acerca de uma filosofia em Leopardi. Nesta investigação adotam-se as seguintes hipóteses interpretativas: i) o Discorso sopra lo stato presente dei costumi deglitaliani, escrito em 1824, contribui para uma compreensão da análise leopardiana acerca do processo de modernização europeia; ii) o Discorso pressupõe uma nova mudança no desenvolvimento da obra leopardiana, da nova crise ocorrida no seu pensamento em 1824, seguida da nova concepção de natureza, não mais aquela amorosa, mas uma natura matrigna, responsável por todos os males e a infelicidade humana; iii) Leopardi aborda elementos fundamentais das mudanças ocorridas no ethos após o processo de modernização europeu com base em um diagnóstico da situação econômica, social, cultural e política italiana; iv) no seu diagnóstico sobre a modernização, ele indica um novo princípio de conservação da vida civil; v) a experiência da modernização, por causa da nova forma de racionalidade e de espiritualização das coisas e do homem, põe em risco a vitalidade humana e conduz a uma nova barbárie: barbárie da sociedade. Ao investigar a experiência filosófica italiana dos séculos XVIII e XIX, Leopardi destaca os rumos tomados pela racionalidade e os riscos identificados por ele de uma barbárie dos novos tempos. Ele denomina o século XIX como século de morte em virtude do desaparecimento da dimensão poética e das ilusões, tão necessárias à conservação da existência humana. Trata-se de uma critica aos novos fenômenos de banalização da vida no mundo moderno e de suas degenerescências: ruína das ilusões, vacuidade dos valores e risco da barbárie da sociedade. / The theme of this thesis is the end of the ancient ethos, the twilight of illusions in the modern world and its adverse effects based on the reflection of Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837). Such reflection also considers the issue of modern barbarism and presupposes its earlier forms, namely, the primitive and medieval barbarism. This research does not investigate the idea of a Leopardi\'s philosophy nor the proposal of a system inside his philosophy. It does not approach the old quarrel over Leopardi as a poet or as philosopher, nor a detailed exposition of philosophy in Leopardi\'s work. This research adopts the following interpretative hypotheses: i) the Discorso sopra lo stato presente dei costumi deglitaliani, written in 1824, contributes to the understanding of the Leopardi\'s interpretation of the European modernization process; ii) the Discorso presupposes a new change in the development of Leopardi\'s work, because of the new crisis in his thought in 1824, followed by a new conception of nature, which is no longer a loving one, but a natura matrigna, responsible for all evil and human misery; iii) Leopardi addresses the main economic, social, cultural and political changes in the Italian ethos after the European modernization process; iv) His diagnosis of modernization indicates a new principle of the conservation of civil life; v) the experience of modernization endangers human vitality and leads to a new barbarism, because of the new rationality and spiritualization of objects and man, namely, the barbarism of society. Leopardi emphasizes the new forms of rationality and their risks, a new era of barbarism, in his investigation of the philosophical experience of the Italian Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries. He calls the Nineteenth century the century of death because of the disappearance of the poetic dimension and of the illusions, that are so necessary for the preservation of human existence. This thesis focus a critique of the new phenomena of banalization of life in the modern world and its degeneracies, namely, the end of illusions, vacancy of values and the risk of the society barbarism.

Action has many influences on how and what we perceive. One robust example of the relationship between action and subsequent perception, which has recently received great attention in the cognitive sciences, is the “intentional binding” effect: When people estimate the timing of their actions and those actions’ effects, they judge the actions and effects as having occurred closer together in time than two events that do not involve voluntary action (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002). This dissertation examines the possible mechanisms and consequences of the intentional binding effect. First, in Chapter 1, I discuss previous literature on the relationships between experiences of time, action, and causality. Impressions of time and causality are psychologically related: The perceived timing of events impacts, and is impacted by, perceived causality. Similarly, one’s experience of causing and controlling events with voluntary action, sometimes called the sense of agency, shapes and is shaped by how those events’ timing is perceived—as shown by the intentional binding effect. In Chapter 2 I present a series of experiments investigating a hypothesized mechanism underlying the intentional binding effect: Actions may lead to a slowing of subjective time, which would explain the intentional binding effect by postulating a shorter experienced duration between action and effect. This hypothesis predicts that, following action, durations separating any two stimuli would appear subjectively shorter. We tested this hypothesis in the context of visual motion illusions: Two visual stimuli are presented in short succession and if the duration between the stimuli (inter-stimulus interval; ISI) is short, participants tend to perceive motion such that the first stimulus appears to move to the position of the second stimulus. If actions shorten subjective durations, even in visual perception, people should observe motion at longer ISIs when the stimuli follow voluntary action because the two stimuli would be separated by less subjective time. Three experiments confirmed this prediction. An additional experiment showed that verbal estimates of the ISI are also shorter following action. A control experiment suggested that a shift in the ability to prepare for the stimuli, afforded by the participant initiating the stimuli, is an unlikely alternative explanation of the observed results. In Chapter 3 I further investigate whether temporal contiguity of actions and their effects, which is known to impact intentional binding, affects perceptions of visual motion illusions. Two experiments showed that temporal contiguity modulates perceptions of illusory motion in a manner similar to contiguity’s effect on intentional binding. Together, these results show that actions impact perception of visual motion illusions and suggest that general slowing of subjective time is a plausible mechanism underlying the intentional binding effect.

Geometrical optical illusions such as the Muller Lyer illusion and the Ponzo illusion have been widely researched over the past 100+ years, yet researchers have not reached a consensus on why human perception is deceived by these illusions or which illusions are the results of the same effects. In this paper, I study these illusions through the lens of a convolutional neural network. First, I successfully train the network to correctly classify how a human would perceive a particular class of illusion (such as the Muller Lyer illusion), then I test the network’s ability to generalize to illusions that it was not trained on (like the Ponzo illusion). I do not find that these networks generalize effectively. Tests to better understand how the network learns to classify these illusions suggest the networks are checking for image data in specific ‘activation regions’ in order to make classifications rather than analyzing the entire illusions.

Enhancing Quality of Life: The Effects of Positive Cognitions by Claudine Antoniette Gerald M.S., Walden University, 2009 B.S., Florida Atlantic University, 2002 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy General Psychology Walden University August 2015 The purpose of this study was to test the nature of the relationship among cognitive factors to determine quality of life in a sample of 180 adult internet users. Theories of the positive psychology paradigm, salutogenesis, dynamic equilibrium model, family systems, and family resilience theories were the bases for examining the relative significance of the cognitive factors, positive illusions, optimism, perception of control, meaning in life, resilience, and sense of coherence to the development of quality of life. Factor analysis revealed the order of significance of these variables from the most influential to least influential: sense of coherence, meaning in life, positive illusions, perception of control, resilience, and optimism. Stepwise multiple regression analysis indicated that positive illusions have a negative influence on quality of life β = -0.198, t = -2.36, F = 5.58, p = 0.02. Standard multiple regression analysis indicated that these cognitive factors do not significantly contribute to quality of life when grouped together. These findings corroborate current research that cognitive factors do not work alone in enhancing quality of life and there must be a balance along factors on other levels, such as psychological, physiological, behavioral, and sociocultural to enhance quality of life. Social change may be influenced by this study's unique and exclusive emphasis on the effects of cognitive factors, demonstrating the relative significance of these cognitive factors, individually and combined, for the promotion of quality of life. This study has filled two research gaps because positive cognitions had not been studied together and the association between positive illusions and the known quality of life promoting cognitive factors needed clarification.

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Distortions of perception of the Müller-Lyer, Delboeuf, Oppel-Kundt and Zöllner type have been studied in psychophysical experiments conducted under computer control with a program of our own design arranging the stimuli, presenting them on the monitor, introducing alterations according to the subject’s command, recording responses, and handling the results. Our illusory figures designed by heteroluminant colours yielded the effects of perceived distortion qualitatively and quantitatively similar to the effects evoked by the white and black figures. Variations of luminance of colours of the figures and backgrounds within a relatively wide interval of its values did not evoke a noticeable change in strength of the perceived distortions, but if the luminance of the stimulus colour approached the magnitude which was determined as isoluminant with the background colour, the strength of the distortions changed significantly; it increased for the Brentano figure and decreased for the Delboeuf, Oppel-Kundt and Zöllner figures. The curves obtained for different subjects with different colour combinations were similar in shape, though horizontal parts and peaks of the curve were not at the same level. For isoluminant figures, the experimental curves demonstrating the strength variations of the perceived distortions in dependence of spatial parameters of the stimuli were similar in shape with the curves for heteroluminant figures, but lay above (Brentano) or below (Delboeuf... [to full text]

This project examined dispositional optimism and its influence on the three subscales of marital adjustment (consensus, satisfaction, and cohesion) by gender. Data for this study came from Wave 2 and 3 of the National Survey of Families and Households. The Actor Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) was used to examine both actor and partner effects of dispositional optimism on the marital adjustment subscales using the program AMOS. Results indicate that wives’ optimism seem to influence their own later marital satisfaction as well as their husbands’ later marital satisfaction. However, husbands’ optimism appeared to influence neither their own nor their wives’ later satisfaction. These results imply that wives’ optimism matters for marital satisfaction, whereas husbands’ does not.

Visual information about the form of an object and its movement in the world can be processed independently. These processing streams must be combined, since our visual experience is of a unitary stream of information. Studies of interactions between motion and form processing can therefore provide insight into how this combination occurs. The present thesis explored two such interactions between motion and spatial coding in human vision. The title of the thesis, “Pencils and Erasers”, serves as an analogy for the thesis’ principal findings. I investigate one situation in which moving patterns can impair the visibility of stationary forms, and another in which the visibility of form is enhanced by motion. In motion-induced blindness (MIB; Bonneh, Cooperman, & Sagi, 2001), salient stationary objects can seem to disappear intermittently from awareness when surrounded by moving features. Static forms proximate to motion can be “erased” from awareness. The thesis contributes to the answer to a simple question: why does MIB happen? My interpretation of this phenomenon emphasises the possible functional benefit of such an eraser around moving form: to suppress artifacts of visual processing from awareness. Chapter 2 demonstrates that motion per se is not required for MIB (Wallis & Arnold, 2008). MIB depends on the rate of luminance change over time, rather than the velocity (or change in position) of the inducing mask. MIB can therefore be characterised as a temporal inhibition, which does not critically depend on direction selective (motion) mechanisms. A similar mechanism of temporal inhibition that does not depend on motion is that which suppresses motion streaks from awareness. The human visual system integrates information over time. Consequently, moving image features produce smeared signals, or “motion streaks”, much like photographing a moving object using a slow shutter speed. We do not experience motion streaks as much as might be expected as they are suppressed from awareness in most circumstances. Evidence suggests that this suppression is enacted by a process of local temporal inhibition, and does not depend on motion mechanisms – much like MIB. These similarities led us to propose that MIB and motion streak suppression might reflect the same mechanism. In the case of MIB, physically present static targets may not be differentiated from signals arising from within the visual system, such as a motion streak. Chapter 3 of the thesis presents four converging lines of evidence in support of this hypothesis (Wallis & Arnold, 2009). The link between MIB and a mechanism of temporal inhibition that serves to suppress motion streaks is further strengthened by a recent report from our laboratory of a new visual illusion, Spatio-Temporal Rivalry (STR; Arnold, Erskine, Roseboom, & Wallis, in press), that is included in the present thesis as an appendix. Why does MIB occur? I suggest that at its base level, MIB reflects the activity of this simple visual mechanism of temporal inhibition (see Gorea & Caetta, 2009). This mechanism might usually serve a functional role in everyday vision: for example, by suppressing the perception of motion streaks. The second motion and form interaction investigated in the thesis represents a situation in which motion can improve form sensitivity. In some situations, observing a moving pattern can objectively improve sensitivity to that pattern after the offset of motion. The visual system can “pencil in”, or improve the visibility of, subsequent visual input. When a form defined by its motion relative to the background ceases to move, it does not seem to instantly disappear. Instead, the form is perceived to remain segregated from the background for a short period, before slowly fading. It is possible that this percept represents a consequence of bias or expectation, not a modulation of static form visibility by motion. Contrary to this possibility, Wallis, Williams and Arnold (2009) demonstrate that alignment sensitivity to spatial forms is improved by pre-exposure to moving forms (Chapter 4). I suggest that the subjective persistence of forms after motion offset and this spatial facilitation may represent two consequences of the same signal. The experiments herein address one situation in which moving patterns can impair the visibility of stationary forms and one in which moving patterns enhance the visibility of stationary forms. Therefore, the present thesis characterises two interactions between form and motion processing in human vision. These mechanisms of “pencil” and “eraser” facilitate the clear perception of objects in our visual world.