The black superiority effect: Black is taller than gray

Abstract

A novel illusion entitled "the letter height superiority effect" has been demonstrated. This shows that letters are perceived as being taller than pseudoletters, while in reality their objective sizes are identical. An explanation of this illusion has been proposed in the framework of the Interactive Activation Model. Indeed, we postulated that the more a feature is activated, the taller a stimulus is perceived as being. The objective of the current study was to test this postulate by manipulating feature activation through signal-to-noise ratio. We presented gray stimuli (low signal-to-noise ratio) or black ones (high signal-to-noise ratio). In a first experiment, participants judged the size of pairs of either letters or pseudoletters presented as black or gray. In a second experiment we presented pairs consisting of a letter and a pseudoletter, of identical or different colors. In a third experiment, we presented pairs of letters or pseudoletters of identical or different colors by block to test the possible effect of previous exposure on perceptual judgments. The results showed that for identical objective size, participants perceive black stimuli to be taller than gray ones and that the effects of the nature of the stimuli and their color are cumulative. The results also indicated that the effects were not due to previous exposure to color or sizes. These results confirm the Interactive Activation Model as a credible explanation for the letter height superiority effect.