Quantitative analyses and empirical tests of perceptual theories of the Black Hole Illusion

Abstract

The Black Hole Illusion (BHI) is a nighttime aviation landing illusion where pilots overestimate their descent angle. This dangerous illusion can cause pilots to compensate by flying lower than intended, which can result in them crashing into the ground or obstacles in front of the runway. A common interpretation of the BHI is that it is a perceptual illusion, and two quantitative perception based theories have been proposed. The first theory was developed by Perrone (1983), and it assumes that pilots misestimate their descent angle due to the loss of contextual information surrounding the runway, such as ground texture, during nighttime landing conditions. Adapted from work by Galanis et al. (1998) and Robinson et al. (2020), the second (eye-level) theory assumes that pilots misestimate their descent angle due to loss of the horizon during nighttime landing conditions. Quantitative analyses of Perrone's theory suggest that the magnitude of the illusion should vary with runway width and length in nighttime conditions, but in daylight conditions there should be no illusion and no effect of runway width or length. Analyses of the eye-level theory predict no impact of runway width or length for any condition. Across two empirical laboratory studies, we do demonstrate a BHI for nighttime evaluations of descent angle, but the data do not support either theory. Thus, the two algorithms analyzed here are not sufficient to explain the BHI; and the BHI may reflect general disorientation due to limited information.