A Geometrical Account to Explain the Fat-Face Illusion

Amit Rawal; Philip Tseng

doi:10.1177/2041669520981094

A Geometrical Account to Explain the Fat-Face Illusion

Iperception. 2020 Dec 22;11(6):2041669520981094. doi: 10.1177/2041669520981094. eCollection 2020 Nov-Dec.

Authors

Amit Rawal¹, Philip Tseng^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Graduate Institute of Mind, Brain, & Consciousness, Taipei Medical University, Taipei City.
² Brain and Consciousness Research Center, Shuang Ho Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei City.
³ Psychiatric Research Center, Wan Fang Hospital, Taipei Medical University, Taipei City.

Abstract

Investigations of the "fat-face" illusion have unanimously agreed that the illusion is face-specific. Here, we offer several manipulations to highlight that the fat-face illusion is not restricted to the bottom image, isn't a property of internal features, facial contour/texture, and in general isn't even specific to faces. We propose the axis of horizontal asymmetry account to contextualize fat-face illusion as a geometry-led illusion.

Keywords: face perception; frames of reference; shape; shapes/objects.