Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Optical illusion
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
=== Future perception === {{Dubious |Section "Future perception" questionable|date=September 2018}} Researcher [[Mark Changizi]] of [[Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute]] in New York has a more imaginative take on optical illusions, saying that they are due to a neural lag which most humans experience while awake. When light hits the retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world. Scientists have known of the lag, yet they have debated how humans compensate, with some proposing that our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bryner |first1=Jeanna |title=Scientist: Humans Can See Into Future |url=http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/06/03/scientist-humans-can-see-into-future.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160916145041/http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/06/03/scientist-humans-can-see-into-future.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 16, 2016 |website=[[Fox News]] |access-date=13 July 2018}}</ref> Changizi asserts that the human visual system has evolved to compensate for neural delays by generating images of what will occur one-tenth of a second into the future. This foresight enables humans to react to events in the present, enabling humans to perform reflexive acts like catching a fly ball and to maneuver smoothly through a crowd.<ref name="Bryner">[http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080602-foresee-future.html Key to All-Optical Illusions Discovered] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080905122802/http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080602-foresee-future.html |date=2008-09-05 }}'', Jeanna Bryner, Senior Writer, LiveScience.com 6/2/08. His research on this topic is detailed in the May/June 2008 issue of the journal ''Cognitive Science''.</ref> In an interview with ABC Changizi said, "Illusions occur when our brains attempt to perceive the future, and those perceptions don't match reality."<ref>{{cite web |last1=NIERENBERG |first1=CARI |title=Optical Illusions: When Your Brain Can't Believe Your Eyes |url=https://abcnews.go.com/Health/EyeHealth/optical-illusions-eye-brain-agree/story?id=8455573 |website=ABC News |access-date=13 July 2018|date=2008-02-07 }}</ref> For example, an illusion called the [[Hering illusion]] looks like bicycle spokes around a central point, with vertical lines on either side of this central, so-called vanishing point.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Barile |first1=Margherita |title=Hering Illusion |url=http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeringIllusion.html |website=mathworld |publisher=Wolfram |access-date=13 July 2018}}</ref> The illusion tricks us into thinking we are looking at a perspective picture, and thus according to Changizi, switches on our future-seeing abilities. Since we are not actually moving and the figure is static, we misperceive the straight lines as curved ones. Changizi said: <blockquote>Evolution has seen to it that geometric drawings like this elicit in us premonitions of the near future. 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, where the door frame (a pair of vertical lines) seems to bow out as we move through it—and we try to perceive what that world will look like in the next instant.<ref name="Bryner" /></blockquote>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)