Manual control of the visual stimulus reduces the flash-lag effect

We investigated how observers’ control of the stimulus change affects temporal aspects of visual perception. We compared the flash-lag effects for motion (Experiment 1) and for luminance (Experiment 2) under several conditions that differed in the degree of the observers’ control of change in a stimulus. The flash-lag effect was salient if the observers passively viewed the automatic change in the stimulus. However, if the observers controlled the stimulus change by a computer-mouse, the flash-lag effect was significantly reduced. In Experiment 3, we examined how observers’ control of the stimulus movement by a mouse affects the reaction time for the shape change in the moving stimulus and flash. Results showed that the control reduced the reaction time for both moving stimulus and flash. These results suggest that observers’ manual control of the stimulus reduces the flash-lag effect in terms of facilitation in visual processing.