Key to All Optical Illusions Discovered

[Dover]

In this so-called Hering illusion, the straight lines near the central point (vanishing point) appear to curve outward. This illusion occurs because our brains are predicting the way the underlying scene would look in the next moment if we were moving toward the middle point. Credit: Mark Changizi, RPI.


Humans can see into the future, says a cognitive scientist. It's nothing like the alleged predictive powers of Nostradamus, but we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur.

And the mechanism behind that can also explain why we are tricked by optical illusions.

Researcher Mark Changizi of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York says it starts with a neural lag that most everyone experiences while awake. When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world.

Scientists already knew about the lag, yet they have debated over exactly how we compensate, with one school of thought proposing our motor system somehow modifies our movements to offset the delay.

Cont'd

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080602-foresee-future.html

[Dogmudgeon]

1. That's old news

Changizi is one-tenth of a second too late -- and a dime short.

--p!
Hello? Is this thing on?

[Mabus]

2. Some how I knew you were going to say that

:spray:

[DCKit]

3. I wonder if gamers brains get wired differently.

Four to twenty four hours a day a day playing fast-moving computer games must have an effect.

BTW, not a gamer and haven't played since I lost a weeks wages in a few hours playing PacMan in high school.

[crikkett]

4. FWIW my parrot reacts to optical illusions too.

A couple of years ago I was experimenting with some 'kinetic' patterns and posted them to a corkboard. They startled my parrot the next time he came in the room.