Abstract

BACHETTI, Lívia da Silva; FUKUSIMA, Sérgio Sheiji  and  QUAGLIA, Maria Amélia Cesari. Effect of alcohol on the hollow-face illusion: a review. Arq. bras. psicol. [online]. 2018, vol.70, n.2, pp. 251-265. ISSN 1809-5267.

The hollow-face illusion happens when the observer perceives a concave facial mask as convex, at a given distance. This can be explained by the overlap of top-down on bottom-up visual processes. Researches demonstrated that intoxicated and Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome (AWS) individuals had deficit in perceiving this illusion. This study aimed to review the literature on this topic. A survey of indexed databases found five studies. The results for alcoholics with moderate AWS were similar and showed a lower frequency in the answers of illusion perception. However, results were contradictory to the alcoholic group with mild AWS. Future researches with different methodologies are necessary to test the hollow-face illusion hypotheses in alcoholics. Therefore, it is also important to consider the observer's decision-making processes in the objects observation based on the Signal Detection Theory (SDT).

Keywords : Alcohol withdrawal syndrome; Hollow-face illusion; Signal detection theory; Visual perception.

        · abstract in Portuguese | Spanish     · text in Portuguese     · Portuguese ( pdf )