A new study has found that people are able to plan strategic movements to a number of different targets at the same time even if they see far fewer targets than are actually present.
A new study conducted by Canadian researchers has found that people are able to plan strategic movements to a number of different targets at the same time even if they see far fewer targets than are actually present. A team of researchers at the Brain and Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario took advantage of a pictorial illusion - known as the "connectedness illusion" - that causes people to underestimate the number of targets they see.
"The Connectedness Illusion": Connecting the circles creates the illusion of fewer circles on the right. But when our brain plans actions to these targets it computes the actual number of targets.
When people act on these targets, however, they can rapidly plan accurate and strategic reaches that reflect the actual number of targets.
Using sophisticated statistical techniques to analyze participants' responses to multiple potential targets, the researchers found that participants' reaches to the targets were unaffected by the presence of the connecting lines.
Thus, the "connectedness illusion" seemed to influence the number of targets they perceived but did not impact their ability to plan actions related to the targets.
These findings indicate that the processes in the brain that plan visually guided actions are distinct from those that allow us to perceive the world.
Advertisement
"It's as though we have a semi-autonomous robot in our brain that plans and executes actions on our behalf with only the broadest of instructions from us!" she asserted.
Advertisement
The finding was published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
Source-ANI