Monkeys See Visual Illusions Like Humans: Georgia University

Researchers from Georgia State University reports that monkeys perceive visual illusions in the same way as apes and humans see them in their daily life.

According to them, humans and monkeys perceive and misperceive the world similarly, which reflects resemblances in these species' perceptual systems and their interpretation of their physical worlds.

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"These results show that humans and monkeys share similarities in their perceptual systems," said Audrey Parrish, graduate student at Georgia State.

They perceive and misperceive some types of physical stimuli in similar ways.

The research team conducted two computer experiments with human adults and monkeys.

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In the study, capuchin monkeys and rhesus monkeys saw the Delbouef illusion in a manner similar to human adults.

The Delboeuf illusion is one type of visual illusion where a dot surrounded by a large ring is typically perceived by humans to be smaller than the same-sized dot surrounded by a small ring.

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This occurs because the ring creates a specific context in which the dots are perceived.

"The results show that monkeys are an appropriate model for studying human perception and that contextual cues affect perception in ways that are shared across species," Parrish explained.

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The findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition.

Source-IANS