Effect of a directional cue on line bisection

Normal participants display a leftward bias when bisecting horizontal lines . It has been proposed that bisection errors can be affected by representat ional biases. We investigated the possibility that this effect could also b e explained as the result of perceptual cucing. Participants bisected horiz ontal lines with identical arrows arranged around the lines, all pointing t o the same end. The arrows significantly affected bisection placement, alth ough participants bisected significantly away from the direction the arrows pointed to. The findings favor the hypothesis that cucing, rather than rep resentation, can affect bisection errors. (C) 2000 Academic Press.