Data for Perception of Ebbinghaus-Titchener Stimuli in Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)

Whether animals experience visual illusions is a fertile line of study for examining the evolution and operation of visual cognition across different species. Here, five starlings were tested to examine how they experienced the Ebbinghaus-Titchener illusion. Across two experiments using an absolute target circle size discrimination, the size, similarity, distance, and number of the surrounding flankers were manipulated. The results from the data contained here suggest this passerine species exhibits behavior inconsistent with the perception of an illusion, neither in a human-like fashion nor, as indicated by the first experiment, a reversed illusion. Instead, the typical training used to investigate this illusion caused the starlings to learn to integrate the irrelevant flankers into their decision process in a manner that precludes the study of any illusory perception. The resulting discriminative behavior might best be described using a template-matching account. While illusion perception by animals remains an important comparative question, it requires additional validation to confirm the exact mechanisms of any illusory reports. <br>

动物是否会产生视错觉，是探究不同物种视觉认知演化与运作机制的极具研究价值的方向。本研究以五只椋鸟为实验对象，探究其对艾宾浩斯-铁钦纳错觉（Ebbinghaus-Titchener illusion）的感知方式。研究采用两项基于绝对目标圆形尺寸判别任务的实验，对周边侧翼刺激物的尺寸、相似性、间距与数量进行了变量操控。本数据集所呈现的实验结果表明，该雀形目物种的行为表现与视错觉感知并不相符：既未呈现类人的错觉感知模式，也未如第一项实验所揭示的那样出现错觉反转现象。与之相反，该错觉研究常用的经典训练流程，使得椋鸟学会将无关侧翼刺激物整合至决策过程中，这一机制完全阻碍了对视错觉感知的相关研究。由此产生的判别行为，最适合通过模板匹配理论进行解释。尽管动物的视错觉感知仍是比较认知研究的重要议题，但要确证各类错觉感知报告背后的确切机制，仍需开展额外的验证工作。