Hand-Eye Dominance, Cognitive Style, and Reversing: Geometric Illusion Susceptibility

The recent theoretical and experimental findings are reviewed regarding a postulated relationship between mixed hand-eye dominance, cognitive style, and those geometric illusions requiring greater spatial discrimination.The present data show that mixed dominance right-hand/left-eye Hong Kong Chinese University undergraduates, were significantly more field-dependent and susceptible to the Horizontal-Vertical (non-contiguous), and the Perspective-Drawing Illusions, than fixed dominance right-hand/right-eye suqjects.Thus following Dawson (1973), it is suggested that these right-eye/left-eye dominance differences stern from two interacting effects: (a) Higher spatial ability (cognitive style) is required for illusion-free responses to certain geometric illusions, and; (b) the effects of eye and acuity dominance interacting with culturally determined glance curves and position of the illusion in the visual field.However, there were some problems due to small samples, while future research in this area will utilize a eye-movement, x-y plotter design, to improve experimental control.