Reduction of the flash-lag effect in terms of active observation

In the present study, we investigated how observers’ control of stimulus change affects temporal and spatial aspects of visual perception. We compared the illusory flash-lag effects for automatic movement of the stimulus with stimulus movement that was controlled by the observers’ active manipulation of a computer mouse (Experiments 1, 2, and 5), a keyboard (Experiment 3), or a trackball (Experiment 4). We found that the flash-lag effect was significantly reduced when the observer was familiar with the directional relationship between the mouse movement and stimulus movement on a front parallel display (Experiments 1 and 2) and that, although the unfamiliar directional relationship between the mouse movement and stimulus movement increased the flash-lag effect at the beginning of the experimental session, the repetitive observation with the same unfamiliar directional relationship reduced the flash-lag effect (Experiment 5). We found no consistent reduction of the flash-lag effect with the use of a keyboard or a trackball (Experiments 3 and 4). These results suggest that the learning of a specific directional relationship between a proprioceptive signal of hand movements and a visual signal of stimulus movements is necessary for the reduction of the flash-lag effect.