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A novel visual illusion paradigm provides evidence for a general factor of illusion sensitivity and personality correlates

Makowski, D., Te, A. S., Kirk, S., Liang, N. Z., & Chen, S. H. A.

Scientific Reports, 2023

Ten classic illusions, generated parametrically and embedded in a perceptual discrimination task, given to 250 people. Sensitivity to one illusion predicts sensitivity to the others — evidence for a general factor, labelled Factor i — which relates positively to Agreeableness and Honesty-Humility and negatively to Psychoticism, Antagonism, Disinhibition and Negative Affect.

Abstract

Visual illusions are a gateway to understand how we construct our experience of reality. Unfortunately, important questions remain open, such as the hypothesis of a common factor underlying the sensitivity to different types of illusions, as well as of personality correlates of illusion sensitivity. In this study, we used a novel parametric framework for visual illusions to generate 10 different classic illusions (Delboeuf, Ebbinghaus, Rod and Frame, Vertical-Horizontal, Zöllner, White, Müller-Lyer, Ponzo, Poggendorff, Contrast) varying in strength, embedded in a perceptual discrimination task. We tested the objective effect of the illusions on errors and response times, and extracted participant-level performance scores (n=250) for each illusion. Our results provide evidence in favour of a general factor underlying the sensitivity to different illusions (labelled Factor i ). Moreover, we report a positive link between illusion sensitivity and personality traits such as Agreeableness, Honesty-Humility, and negative relationships with Psychoticism, Antagonism, Disinhibition, and Negative Affect.

• DOI: 10.1038/S41598-023-33148-5
• Full text (PDF)

Keywords: Visual Illusions · Personality · Psychometrics

Cite

Makowski, D., Te, A. S., Kirk, S., Liang, N. Z., & Chen, S. H. A. (2023). A novel visual illusion paradigm provides evidence for a general factor of illusion sensitivity and personality correlates. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/S41598-023-33148-5

See also

• The structure of deception: Validation of the lying profile questionnaire — Makowski, D., Pham, T., Lau, Z. J., Raine, A., & Chen, S. H. A. (2021)
• A Parametric Framework to Generate Visual Illusions Using Python — Makowski, D., Lau, Z. J., Pham, T., Paul Boyce, W., & Annabel Chen, S. (2021)
• The Mint Scale: A Fresh Validation of the Multimodal Interoception Questionnaire and Comparison to the MAIA, BPQ and IAS — Makowski, D., Neves, A., Benn, E. L., Bennett, M., & Poerio, G. (2025)