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Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

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Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions. / Wincza, Radoslaw; Hartley, Calum; Donovan, Tim et al.
In: Scientific Reports, Vol. 15, No. 1, 5948, 13.03.2025.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Wincza, R, Hartley, C, Donovan, T, Linkenauger, S, Crawford, T, Griffiths, D & Doherty, M 2025, 'Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions', Scientific Reports, vol. 15, no. 1, 5948. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88178-y

APA

Wincza, R., Hartley, C., Donovan, T., Linkenauger, S., Crawford, T., Griffiths, D., & Doherty, M. (2025). Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions. Scientific Reports, 15(1), Article 5948. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-88178-y

Vancouver

Wincza R, Hartley C, Donovan T, Linkenauger S, Crawford T, Griffiths D et al. Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions. Scientific Reports. 2025 Mar 13;15(1):5948. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-88178-y

Author

Wincza, Radoslaw ; Hartley, Calum ; Donovan, Tim et al. / Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions. In: Scientific Reports. 2025 ; Vol. 15, No. 1.

Bibtex

@article{7fe65e772459419ba8c01caa0e861692,
title = "Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions",
abstract = "Extensive exposure to specific kinds of imagery tunes visual perception, enhancing recognition and interpretation abilities relevant to those stimuli (e.g. radiologists can rapidly extract important information from medical scans). For the first time, we tested whether specific visual expertise induced by professional training also affords domain-general perceptual advantages. Experts in medical image interpretation (n = 44; reporting radiographers, trainee radiologists, and certified radiologists) and a control group consisting of psychology and medical students (n = 107) responded to the Ebbinghaus, Ponzo, M{\"u}ller-Lyer, and Shepard Tabletops visual illusions in forced-choice tasks. Our results show that medical image experts were significantly less susceptible to all illusions except for the Shepard Tabletops, demonstrating superior perceptual accuracy. These findings could possibly be attributed to a stronger local processing bias, a by-product of learning to focus on specific areas of interest by disregarding irrelevant context in their domain of expertise. ",
author = "Radoslaw Wincza and Calum Hartley and Tim Donovan and Sally Linkenauger and Trevor Crawford and Debra Griffiths and Martin Doherty",
year = "2025",
month = mar,
day = "13",
doi = "10.1038/s41598-025-88178-y",
language = "English",
volume = "15",
journal = "Scientific Reports",
issn = "2045-2322",
publisher = "Nature Research",
number = "1",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Specific Visual Expertise Reduces Susceptibility to Visual Illusions

AU - Wincza, Radoslaw

AU - Hartley, Calum

AU - Donovan, Tim

AU - Linkenauger, Sally

AU - Crawford, Trevor

AU - Griffiths, Debra

AU - Doherty, Martin

PY - 2025/3/13

Y1 - 2025/3/13

N2 - Extensive exposure to specific kinds of imagery tunes visual perception, enhancing recognition and interpretation abilities relevant to those stimuli (e.g. radiologists can rapidly extract important information from medical scans). For the first time, we tested whether specific visual expertise induced by professional training also affords domain-general perceptual advantages. Experts in medical image interpretation (n = 44; reporting radiographers, trainee radiologists, and certified radiologists) and a control group consisting of psychology and medical students (n = 107) responded to the Ebbinghaus, Ponzo, Müller-Lyer, and Shepard Tabletops visual illusions in forced-choice tasks. Our results show that medical image experts were significantly less susceptible to all illusions except for the Shepard Tabletops, demonstrating superior perceptual accuracy. These findings could possibly be attributed to a stronger local processing bias, a by-product of learning to focus on specific areas of interest by disregarding irrelevant context in their domain of expertise.

AB - Extensive exposure to specific kinds of imagery tunes visual perception, enhancing recognition and interpretation abilities relevant to those stimuli (e.g. radiologists can rapidly extract important information from medical scans). For the first time, we tested whether specific visual expertise induced by professional training also affords domain-general perceptual advantages. Experts in medical image interpretation (n = 44; reporting radiographers, trainee radiologists, and certified radiologists) and a control group consisting of psychology and medical students (n = 107) responded to the Ebbinghaus, Ponzo, Müller-Lyer, and Shepard Tabletops visual illusions in forced-choice tasks. Our results show that medical image experts were significantly less susceptible to all illusions except for the Shepard Tabletops, demonstrating superior perceptual accuracy. These findings could possibly be attributed to a stronger local processing bias, a by-product of learning to focus on specific areas of interest by disregarding irrelevant context in their domain of expertise.

U2 - 10.1038/s41598-025-88178-y

DO - 10.1038/s41598-025-88178-y

M3 - Journal article

VL - 15

JO - Scientific Reports

JF - Scientific Reports

SN - 2045-2322

IS - 1

M1 - 5948

ER -