Prediction, Postdiction, and Perceptual Length Contraction: A Bayesian Low-Speed Prior Captures the Cutaneous Rabbit and Related Illusions

Illusions provide a window into the brain's perceptual strategies. In certain illusions, an ostensibly task-irrelevant variable influences perception. For example, in touch as in audition and vision, the perceived distance between successive punctate stimuli reflects not only the actual distance but curiously the inter-stimulus time. Stimuli presented at different positions in rapid succession are drawn perceptually toward one another. This …