The Miiller-Lyer Illusion as a Tool for Schizophrenia Screening
Abstract
The perceptual deficit hypothesis for schizophrenia is based on more general models of normal human visual perception, which have traditionally postulated that objects must compete for attention and processing space in the visual system. Recent evidence suggests that susceptibility of schizophrenics to the Müller-Lyer (ML) illusion may be a marker of vulnerability, detectable in prodromic patients, but disappearing with the progression of the illness. This illusion consists of overestimating the length of a straight line with converging arrowheads at the ends, while underestimating those with diverging arrowheads. Although the ML illusion has been shown to occur in touch as well as vision, it is not known whether abnormal contextual suppression extends to other sensory modalities in schizophrenics. Another challenge consists in verifying whether different visual parameters of the illusion which favor the magnocellular and parvocellular systems would have diverse ML illusion effects in schizophrenia. In this review we present data showing the degree of illusion in capuchin monkeys (Cebus spp.), a possible animal model for schizophrenia. To this end, a computer program was developed to conduct experiments in humans and non-human primates, allowing the display of illusory figures, manipulation of the stimuli's exposure time, interval between stimuli and number of trials. In the non-primate experiments, the visual illusion test based on achromatic ML illusion figures indicated the presence of the ML illusory effect in 10 capuchin monkeys. These results suggest that Cebus might be a good model for the experimental study of schizophrenia.
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Paradigms that test an illusory effect via visuomotor performances are thought to engage complex cross-modal coordination and are of particular interest in schizophrenia.
“In this regard, paradigms that test an illusory effect via visuomotor performances are thought to engage a complex cross-modal coordination and, thus, are of particular interest in schizophrenia (Pessoa et al., 2008; Chen et al., 2011).”
From What visual illusions teach us about schizophrenia (2014) · cites this paper as Pessoa et al., 2008
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Alexander-Bloch, A. F., Gogtay, N., Meunier, D., Birn, R., Clasen, L., Lalonde, F., Lenroot, R., Giedd, J., & Bullmore, E. T. (2010) · Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnsys.2010.00147 · Cited by 480 · see citing works
What visual illusions teach us about schizophrenia
Notredame, C.-E., Pins, D., Deneve, S., & Jardri, R. (2014) · Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience · doi:10.3389/fnint.2014.00063 · Cited by 177 · see citing works
Apparent motion perception in patients with paranoid schizophrenia
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- Authors
- Pessoa, V. F., Monge-Fuentes, V., Simon, C. Y., Suganuma, E., & Tavares, M. C. H.
- Affiliations
- Universidade de Brasília (BR)
- ORCID
- Tavares, M.C.H.
- Venue
- Reviews in the Neurosciences
- Publisher
- Walter de Gruyter GmbH
- Published
- 2008-01
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 2-3
- Pages
- 91-100
- ISSN
- 0334-1763 (ISSN-L)
- 2191-0200
- OpenAlex
- W2030583602
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 82
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 0.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Reviews in the Neurosciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Fundação de Empreendimentos Científicos e Tecnológicos
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Hallucinations in medical conditions
- Keywords
- Müller-Lyer illusion, prodromal schizophrenia, capuchin monkeys, animal models of schizophrenia, visual perception, multisensory illusions
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Humans, Optical Illusions, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Schizophrenia
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