We recently investigated the relationship between the surface area and population receptive field (pRF) sizes of human early visual cortices and susceptibility to a series of spatial illusions (Jastrzębowska et al., 2023). This was an attempt at direct and conceptual replication of a series of studies by Schwarzkopf and colleagues (Moutsiana et al., 2016; Schwarzkopf et al., 2011; Schwarzkopf & Rees, 2013; Song et al., 2013). We could not replicate previous findings, with no significant correlations either between illusions at the behavioral level or between illusions and neural measures. Schwarzkopf published a reply (Schwarzkopf, 2024), in which he took issue with our work, primarily at the theoretical/conceptual level, and pointed out certain methodological concerns. We appreciate the time and effort taken by Schwarzkopf to provide detailed feedback on our work. Given the conflict of interest in this matter, we will keep our response brief, addressing the more minor points in a revision of our manuscript.
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Jastrzębowska et al. (2024) studied this question.
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