Art and More

Last semester I took an art class that touched on the art form trompe l’oeil, I was ecstatic when I saw it mentioned in the textbook for this class. According to our text it is “French for “fool the eye”, meaning taking a two-dimensional, flat surface, making it appear three-dimensional (Foley and Matlin, 2011 p.158). I think it is such an interesting way of how art creates a perception of depth.

I found an article of 3-D pavement images I thought to be enlightening: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1153004/Mind-crevasse-The-amazing-3D-pavement-art-pedestrians-edge.html

All of these paintings are rich with pictorial depth cues, from size, texture gradient, linear perspective, and atmospheric perspective creating also occlusion and height cues through shading techniques and some have realistic coloring that makes the appearance so provocative and engaging (Foley & Matlin, 2011). For example, the size of the surface used, makes the paintings surreal, some of the photos there are people standing near the linear perspective, or close to the cliff or point of appearing to fall, also the use of darker to lighter colors towards the “bottom” creating a sense of depth and possibly fear and/or excitement. I found it to be a fun way of art and psychology being part of everyday.

post by Renee Maharaj

Have you ever wanted blue eyes?

Do you have brown eyes and have wanted blue eyes?  A doctor in California came up with a procedure that only take 20 seconds to give you those blue eyes you have always wanted.  The process is irreversible and does not happen immediately.  How does this procedure work?  The procedure works by extracting the melanin from the iris.  Melanin is the dark pigmentation that gives color to the skin, hair and eyes.  The more the melanin the darker it is going to be.  For blue eyes the melanin is found beneath the iris and that is why it is lighter colored.  Well once the melanin is removed it takes about 2 to 3 weeks for the blue to replace the area that the melanin once was.  This is what makes the procedure irreversible and does not damage the vision.  The procedure has taken 10 years for the doctor and the procedure costs five thousand dollars.

 posted by Michelle Christensen

Ambiguous Illusions

It is amazing where things will turn up! Yesterday when I logged onto my Facebook account I was greeted with this picture and the instructions to watch it until the man moved.

Thinking it was one of those things that you stare at for a while and something jumps out to scare you, I did not watch too closely at first. Once I had wasted a few minutes waiting for the zombie to pop up, I resigned myself  to the fact that I was wrong and that maybe there was something really interesting about this picture. (It was either that or all of the comments which raved about this picture’s strange but awesome qualities were all lies.) I had to wait a few more minutes before the man finally moved but when he did, I was amazed.
This is a great example of an ambiguous illusion. Ambiguous illusions are formed when we do not perceive enough information to allow our minds to form a positive picture of the stimulus(Gregory, 1968 p.70). In the case of this picture, I think it is a little more difficult to decipher because of the man’s shoulder. While, if you are only looking at his face, it is relatively easy to see it switch orientations, if you take the shoulder into account, which implied the orientation of facing the viewer, it is much harder to see the switch. This is because the shoulder give the brain information about which way the man is facing even though the portion of his face that we see is ambiguous.

References:
Gregory, R. L. (1968).  Visual illusions. Scientific American, 219, 66-76.


~Post by Amber Kolaga~

Magic: It's All in the Brain

As we know, magic tricks are fun! But we're always left pondering the method of the magician. Where is the trick? What if it wasn't necessarily the magician who was pulling the "wool over your eyes" but your brain itself? What if a magician is merely a master of the mind, not the hand? On a Nova special about the brain, the show poses the same questions as any fan of magic tricks. But what we find is not quite as we expect. It is our mind that a magician harnesses for their magic to work. For example, the simple three red cups bit, with the one ball under. And somehow, that ball becomes two, then three! How does this happen. Simple -eye tracking. Our eyes tend to focus on the action, the wave of the hand. It's certainly a distraction, but it works when -to many audiences' surprise - the trickery is done right under our noses. 

How about the coin trick? It's a popular stunt. The coin is in the magician's hand then behind your ear? How does this work? Inferred movement. Our brain making assumptions of where the end moved, due to the direction it traveled. We assumed that the coin went into the right hand, when it fact, the magician may have slipped it in his pocket. Our brains are quite sensitive to motion, and from here a simple momentum of movement can confuse of us to believe the motion was completed. As stated in the video, it is part of our survival mechanism.   

Here's a link to the video: http://video.pbs.org/video/1757229644/

It can also be viewed on Netflix. Just look under: How does the brain work? NOVA scienceNOW

Post by Arianna Williams

How People Perceive the World

The Pink Bat Movie has an interesting perspective when it comes to how people perceive information in the world. During this video, by Michael McMillan, he talked about his Pink Bat Theory and how the brain filters information, to prevent an overload. But when the brain filters all of this information it not only establishes the “perception of our reality” but it also selects the information that usually supports a person’s beliefs while rejecting information that challenges those beliefs. This video has an interesting perspective about how most problems are not actually problems, but instead are unseen solutions. Perceptual Blindness was mentioned, as was the experiment that was performed to see who would notice a gorilla in the room.  This video had a unique approach to the way that people perceive the world and how if we start seeing our “problem” as “solutions” then we would create a world full of solutions as opposed to a world full of problems.

~Post by Lauren Bonham~

Reference:

Video Link: http://www.pinkbatmovie.com/

Facial Recognition

Through our class discussion of what makes a face attractive it came to my attention that there is not only studies illustrating that there are universal characteristic of an attractive face but there is also is a science behind facial recognition.  Scientists have discovered how we recognize faces by collecting face images and manipulating the images to look more masculine/feminine and changing the dimensions of the face. Subjects then try to recognize a familiar face from a group of pictures that appear to be the same but vary in their dimension and expression. Scientists believe that because some faces look alike we note the significant facial features exactly to avoid errors in recognizing a particular face. Also, studies have demonstrated that we don't recognize faces that we've only seen once or a few times as easily as faces we encounter more often. A good example of this would be when an individual attempts to recognize an unfamiliar face in a line-up. Even if the individual had seen the face close up, there is still difficulty in recognizing the face. Because recognizing an unfamiliar face can be problematic, law enforcement can now use facial recognition. Similar to a fingerprint, facial recognition allows people to be identified. Law enforcement also believes that by using facial recognition  the efficiency and accuracy is increased. Due to the difficulty in recognizing unfamiliar faces and the ability our eyes have to deceive (as well as how our memory works), misidentification is the single greatest factor in wrongful convictions. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has done numerous studies that reveal the fallibility of eye witness identification and face recognition. If interested check out these sites
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dna/interviews/loftus.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Accuracy-of-Eye-Witness-Testimony-and-Its-Flaws&id=328261

-Sarah Rohler

Illusons

After studying illusions we now know that aside from their entertainment value illusions greatly assist in our understanding of sensation and perception. Although we know that illusions are distortions of the senses they continue to be effective by their ability to distort reality. Through researching illusions, I have come across a website that provides examples and explanations of why illusions occur. One of the most interesting ones that I have come across is a picture of Abraham Lincoln upside down. In this illusion President Lincoln's face looks normal, however, when the picture is turned around, right side up, we can see the obvious distortion in his facial features. One explanation for this, according to some scientists, is that our brains are only able to recognize a face when it is right side up. When a face is presented upside down we see it as an object rather than a face, which is why we don't respond to its distortions. PBS.org-the secret life of the brain- also takes you through a 3D tour of the brain! This helps you understand the intricate details of the brain and how illusions are possible.http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/illusions/form1_flash.html

Also, don't forget to check out the picture of President Lincoln!


by Sarah Rohler at 10:50 pm