Demonstration of Silencing

Instructions: Keep your eyes fixed on the small white mark in the center. At first, the ring is stationary and it’s easy to tell that the dots are changing. A few seconds later, the ring begins to rotate and the dots suddenly appear to stop changing.

But play the movie again, this time looking directly at one of the dots and following it as the ring rotates. You will see that, in fact, the dots had been changing the whole time, even during the rotation—you just didn’t notice it. This failure to detect that moving objects are changing is silencing.

Motion silences awareness of hue changes

Ambiguous Silhouettes

Another myth busted?

Video Description:

The movie demonstrates the depth ambiguity of the silhouette in the centre which can be interpreted in two ways. The two interpretations differ in the perceived order of the surfaces of the body in depth as can be seen in the figure on the right. The left column illustrates the interpretation in which we look at the figure’s back in the first frame (top). As a consequence, the figure rotates clockwise as we go though the sequence of frames (from top to bottom), and we look at it from a slightly elevated viewpoint (10 deg). In the right column we illustrate the other interpretation. We look at the front of the figure in the first frame, the figure rotates counter-clockwise, and the viewpoint is 10 deg from below.

For more information, check out our page at: Biomotion Lab

Size Matters

Watch what happens with these circles. The size of your visual cortex in your brain determines whether an optical illusion “works” on you or not. The smaller the visual cortex you have, the more you will be “fooled” by the illusion!

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