Finally someone makes a decent science fiction
movie. Its been a long time. Also the optical illusion in the image above is pretty cool (scroll up and down while looking at the image). This got me thinking about optical illusions. Some wikipedia based extensive research got me to this one
(Left) Square A and B are the same color. I thought it was wrong...but it isn't. I am confused. (Below) Another one: Move towards (or away) while looking at the black dot in the middle

If you have made it this far then you might be interested in this
article. This got me thinking about how far our visual system has evolved. Within the last decade it has been convincingly shown that the visual system in vertebrates is accurate enough to detect a single photon, that is, its about as accurate as it could/can be. Yet, simple pictures like this can completely confuse our visual system. Taking a more evolutionary stand-point this says something about the statistics of objects and images found in the natural world. These images are anything but natural, but what does that mean? Why aren't things in the natural world like this? Are there two sets of optical illusions, one where however hard I train I could never resolve the illusion and second where I could? For example, the classic vase or a pair of faces illusion is a classic example. I have seen that enough times to now be able to hold both those images simultaneously in my mind (whatever that means) without switching back and forth. So how much of an optical illusions is novelty and how much of it reflects neurophysiological limits. Thats interesting I think.
1 comment:
With the second illusion, try moving in and out while focusing on some part of the circumference. Then it seems that inhomogeneities are introduced in the staggered pattern. This is different from the rigid rotation when focusing on the black dot.
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