Testing the Relationship between Phenomenological Control related to Illusion Sensitivity
Abstract
Visual illusions highlight how easily our conscious experience can be altered with respect to perceptual reality. Despite sharing in-principle mechanisms with phenomenological control, i.e., the ability to alter our perceptual experience to match task demands or expectations, research tying the two remains scarce. This study aimed to replicate and extend Lush et al. (2022) by testing for a relationship between phenomenological control and illusion sensitivity across multiple illusion types, assessing the role of higher-level (top-down) processes. It also examined associations between visual illusion sensitivity and psychoticism to assess the potential contribution of lower-level effects (e.g., weak priors). Five hundred participants were recruited in an online study using an illusion-based perceptual decision paradigm (Illusion Game; Makowski et al., 2023) measuring sensitivity to three visual illusions (Ebbinghaus, Müller-Lyer, Vertical-Horizontal), alongside the Phenomenological Control Scale and personality measures. In the registered analysis (N = 295), Bayesian correlations provided evidence against a relationship between phenomenological control and error rates for the Müller-Lyer and Ebbinghaus illusions, but were inconclusive for the Vertical-Horizontal illusion. The data also favoured the absence of the hypothesised association between error rates and psychoticism. These conclusions were unchanged in an unregistered sensitivity analysis addressing data quality issues. These findings are consistent with the cognitive impenetrability of these two illusions under the present task conditions, and suggest that susceptibility to them is not related to trait-level control over subjective experience. However, low consistency across illusion measures highlights important methodological limitations in capturing individual differences related to illusion sensitivity.
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BibTeX
@misc{makowski2026testing,
title = {{Testing the Relationship between Phenomenological Control related to Illusion Sensitivity}},
author = {Dominique Makowski and Ana Neves},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/873th_v8},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/873th_v8/},
note = {CC0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Testing the Relationship between Phenomenological Control related to Illusion Sensitivity
AU - Dominique Makowski
AU - Ana Neves
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/873th_v8
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/873th_v8/
AB - Visual illusions highlight how easily our conscious experience can be altered with respect to perceptual reality. Despite sharing in-principle mechanisms with phenomenological control, i.e., the ability to alter our perceptual experience to match task demands or expectations, research tying the two remains scarce. This study aimed to replicate and extend Lush et al. (2022) by testing for a relationship between phenomenological control and illusion sensitivity across multiple illusion types, assessing the role of higher-level (top-down) processes. It also examined associations between visual illusion sensitivity and psychoticism to assess the potential contribution of lower-level effects (e.g., weak priors). Five hundred participants were recruited in an online study using an illusion-based perceptual decision paradigm (Illusion Game; Makowski et al., 2023) measuring sensitivity to three visual illusions (Ebbinghaus, Müller-Lyer, Vertical-Horizontal), alongside the Phenomenological Control Scale and personality measures. In the registered analysis (N = 295), Bayesian correlations provided evidence against a relationship between phenomenological control and error rates for the Müller-Lyer and Ebbinghaus illusions, but were inconclusive for the Vertical-Horizontal illusion. The data also favoured the absence of the hypothesised association between error rates and psychoticism. These conclusions were unchanged in an unregistered sensitivity analysis addressing data quality issues. These findings are consistent with the cognitive impenetrability of these two illusions under the present task conditions, and suggest that susceptibility to them is not related to trait-level control over subjective experience. However, low consistency across illusion measures highlights important methodological limitations in capturing individual differences related to illusion sensitivity.
ER -