I watched a ASW-20 pilot do the exact same thing (pulling the gear up) thinking he was deploying the spoilers. First flight in a friends ship, it looked like a prefect landing, but he just kept coming and coming. Flew right into the fence at the end of the runway! I'm not surprised, there are 3 handles, all the same shape, size and all clustered together on the left side of the cockpit. I believe they were all black also, but I think later on the spoiler handle was blue. Often thought the shape should be different, say rectangular for the spoilers, round for the gear and airfoil shaped for the flaps. As an old radar operator, I remember the primary control knobs were different........square for gain, rectangular for tilt, round for marks, etc. never looked at the knobs, just knew by feel.
JJ