Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Two experiments were conducted to investigate perceptual judgment and choice of apertures in a virtual environment. In both experiments, we showed participants two apertures of the same width consisting of three human-like objects on a computer screen. In Experiment 1, participants were asked to judge which apertures they perceived to be wider. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to choose which apertures they preferred to pass through. We manipulated the face directions of the three human-like objects and analyzed participants’ choice ratios. In Experiment 1, there was a significant difference in width perception in specific condition. In Experiment 2, there were significant differences in choice of aperture in all eight conditions. These results indicate that the combination of three human-like objects' directions affects the participant’s aperture choice. Surprisingly, although two apertures were physically the same width, we found perceptual bias or illusion in choice between them under particular experimental conditions.