Do visual illusions probe the visual brain?
Unit de Recherche sur l’Evolution des Comportements et l’Apprentissage, Université Charles de Gaulle, Lille, Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France. yann.coello@univ-lille3.fr Visual illusions have been shown to affect perceptual judgements more so than motor behaviour, which was interpreted as evidence for a functional division of labour within the visual system. The dominant perception-action theory argues that perception involves a holistic processing of visual objects or scenes, performed within the ventral, inferior temporal cortex. Conversely, visuomotor action involves the processing of the 3D relationship between the goal of the action and the body, performed predominantly within the dorsal, posterior parietal cortex. We explored the effect of well-known visual illusions (a size-contrast illusion and the induced Roelofs effect) in a patient (IG) suffering bilateral lesions of the dorsal visual stream. According to the perception-action theory, IG’s perceptual judgements and control of
