Illusions

[progressoid]

The Neuroscience of Illusion
Brightness and color can have powerful effects on perception. In this illusion created by vision scientist Edward H. Adelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, squares A and B are the same shade of gray. (If you don’t believe it, print out this page, cut out the two squares and place them side by side.) Our brain does not perceive the true brightness and color of each square but instead determines the brightness and color of A and B by comparison with the squares surrounding them.










The Illusions of Love
The way we see things depends on our frame of mind. In this illusion, Message of Love from the Dolphins, adult viewers see two nude lovers embracing. But when young children look at this image, they see only dolphins.


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More at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=169-best-illusions

[ZombieHorde]

1. Recommended. I printed out the square illusion, it is awesome. nt

[progressoid]

2. Me too. I just showed it to our teenager. Kind of freaked her out.

:)

[ZombieHorde]

3. Aweome. nt

[ThomWV]

4. If there's a Dolphin in there I can't find the SOB.

[progressoid]

5. Took me all afternoon to find them.

:blush:

[truedelphi]

6. Same here, Thom, same here. n/t

[rug]

7. Dolphin? I just found the cork.

[conscious evolution]

11. six of them

[Delphinus]

12. Yeah,

found them right away. NOT that I didn't see the lovers, but Dolphins were easy to spot. ;)

[Hestia]

17. 9 dolphins

[lunatica]

29. All the shadows on the lovers are dolphins

One you see one you can pick out all the rest.

[mmonk]

8. What dolphins?

Oh yeah, I finally see them. I'm definitely old.

[Control-Z]

9. Man, I just love

this kind of stuff. I did an optical illusions project for my very first science fair.

So cool.

[Duer 157099]

10. Fuck my stupid brain, I need a new one

I copied that first image into my graphics program to see what the RGB values of the colors are, and goddammit my computer is broken too! So my brain and my computer are both broken now, great.

There is NO WAY that both squares A and B are 120,120,120.

And what dolphins?

:sigh: and here I thought I lived in the "reality-based" community

[gristy]

13. I copied and pasted the image twice into powerpoint, cropped one of them down to just the A square,

dragged the cropped A square across the complete image, and damn if that cropped A square didn't completely change its shade of gray. This is the strangest illusion I have ever seen.

[Duer 157099]

16. I did that too

Doesn't it make you wonder what else we are not seeing correctly?

[lonestarnot]

21. Friend nothing is ever as it appears.

[NuttyFluffers]

23. the sun and moon is a wonderful everyday example of the same phenom.

when high in the sky and nothing to compare it to, both the sun and moon look oh so tiny. when close to the horizon, especially with a lot of mountains to provide comparison, they look so much larger.

we specialize in comparative and contrastive knowledge to gain a perception of our reality. we also specialize in editing knowledge we think is extraneous. the real fun part that jumps into nominalism asks the question "if we make our own tools (including machines), and our own calculations, and all those are based on our limited perceptions, then why do we trust the calibration on any of our tools to be able to find the truth?" the next fun question is, "but does it matter whether it is the Truth, universal and immutable? these castles upon sand do a good enough job in their own sphere, as long as i remember they cannot be applied outside of themselves." ah, the joy of knowing you have so much more to know...

[Delphinus]

14. Hey ...

I printed the page out and, unless I'm misunderstanding the directions, square A and square B are two different colors.

[gristy]

18. You have to do one more thing.

Cut out one of the squares (either A or B) and lay it right next to the other one. You might be surprised!

[Delphinus]

25. I did ...

and I am!! I stood there with my mouth open, thinking, "no way!" Wow!

[progressoid]

19. Another way to see it is by cutting two holes in another piece of paper that match those two squares

Lay the paper with the two holes on top of the illusion. This way you only see the A & B shapes for comparison.

It's pretty neat.

[Delphinus]

26. It really

*is* neat!

[havocmom]

15. What does it say about someone who can see lovers & dolphins virtually at same time?

My astigmatism might just be getting worse. I know my personality split is.

[progressoid]

20. Paging Dr. Freud.

:eyes:

[tblue37]

22. That is how I see it, too--both at the same time. I have always

seen optical illusions that way: both images at the same time.

[lunatica]

30. I saw the lovers then when I read the caption I saw the dolphins

right away

[seabeyond]

32. me too. nt

[alphafemale]

24. kick nt

[Mari333]

27. sigh. man its been too long. I saw the dolphins first.

dang.

[etherealtruth]

28. Wow

Giving this a kick with a "wow" .... so others that may have missed this can give it a view.

[ismnotwasm]

31. Cool

I found the Dolphins, but I still see the lovers. I'll print out the other, I alway find this stuff fascinating