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Psychological Science 2017

Illusory Increases in Font Size Improve Letter Recognition

Martin Lages1; Stephanie C. Boyle1; Rob Jenkins2

1 University of Glasgow · 2 University of York

open access

Abstract

Visual performance of human observers depends not only on the optics of the eye and early sensory encoding but also on subsequent cortical processing and representations. In two experiments, we demonstrated that motion adaptation can enhance as well as impair visual acuity. Observers who experienced an expanding motion aftereffect exhibited improved letter recognition, whereas observers who experienced a contracting motion aftereffect showed impaired letter recognition. We conclude that illusory enlargement and shrinkage of a visual stimulus can modulate visual acuity.

DOI
10.1177/0956797617705391
Sources
openalex

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