Life – An Optical Illusion

June 3rd, 2008

A very interesting theory has been developed by Mark Changizi a cognitive scientist, about how we interpret the world around us and also could explain certain optical illusions that we all perceive. It’s to do with how long it takes us to process the visual information from our eyes into images processed in the brain (approx 0.1S), this may seem relatively insignificant, but if you are going to catch out that Ozzy batsman instead of receiving a mouthful of broken teeth, it becomes all the more important. It has been declared that evolution has programmed us to instinctively warp the images around us to correct distortions created by movement of ourselves around our environment. So if we are walking along a street for example we will be visualising certain areas one tenth of a second before we actually see them (???), so we are kind of looking into the future! Have a look at this:

The converging lines toward a vanishing point (the spokes) are cues that trick our brains into thinking we are moving forward — as we would in the real world, Since we aren’t actually moving and the figure is static, we misperceive the straight lines as curved. If you imagine the perspective of a door frame as you walked through it, you begin to understand how our perception compensates and why these static parallel lines seem to bulge near the center. Have a look at this one:


In this illusion, looming toward the center leads to the brightness expanding outward, while looming away does the opposite, exactly the same rules at work.

This is however only a theory, but a pretty cool one…

Entry Filed under: General