Visual Illusions: Catching the Brain Creating Reality

#briangreene #illusions #science
Visual illusions, from magic tricks to images that have sparked internet feuds, are providing scientists with evolving insight into the complex act of seeing. Illusions play with the way our eyes and our brains work together and help establish that what we “see” is shaped by everything from light and eye movement to the influence of expectation, memory and desire.

Neuroscientists Susana Martinez-Conde and Rodrigo Quian Quiroga and psychologist Emily Balcetis are among those using illusions to catch the brain in the act of interpreting and sometimes misinterpreting what the eye takes in. In conversation with Brian Greene, they discuss illusions involving everything from celebrity photos to police dash cam tapes to mind bending images that broke the internet.

This program is part of the Big Ideas series, supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

Participants:
Susana Martinez-Conde
Rodrigo Quian Quiroga
Emily Balcetis

Moderator:
Brian Greene

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#opticalillusion #thedress

[Robustacap]

Having experience w psychedelics and (not related) a psychosis due to insomnia, I've come to learn quite early that what we perceive is not to be trusted. At least not automatically, our brains are a wild thing and we have less control over our "reality" than we think.

[georgegrubbs]

There is no other than Brian who can conduct this type of discussion and interaction at this level. The Best.

[tmanwattsutube]

Brian is THE MAN. He has the remarkable power to understand the science and translate it to those of us who get stuck at the math!

[kenlieck]

Keep in "mind" that these funky little quirks of sense perception aren't limited to vision either.
For instance, if you show two different subtitles while playing a muffled audio track, people will hear different words each time.
Also, we don't so much smell particular scents as we do *changes* in the odors around us, which is why other people smell bad but you don't.
And it probably even explains why most people have horrible taste!

[Robustacap]

Has anybody else experienced that moment of horror when your brain sees something but can't connect it or false connects it into some nightmare? Usually lasts only a moment before you see what is truly there, heat still pounding.

[klumaverik]

Listening to this made me scared of being in the dark in a brightly lit room realizing that I cant actually see the world exactly as it is is like trying to see in a dark room.

[leandrorgps]

Very constructive and useful for these times of conflict and misunderstanding. Thank you!

[hireality]

Highly interesting, Absolutely brilliant, thank you Brian and the guests 👍

[savagebolt]

I knew this one could not be listened to. It is a 'must watch' presentation!

[ozumsoz]

Thank you so much for all the interesting shows! It really is absolutely awesome stuff!

[annagorska]

That was great. First I saw the blue and black dress, but when I started thinking it's in the shade I could also see gold and white. But with the chess, chess board and moving gray square I couldn't break the illusion... And the movie with a policeman, I couldn't believe I hadn't seen as the other man was swallowing drugs. Later on it was so obvious... Amazing experience, thank you❤

[markoszouganelis]

∘∞💕 Thank you "World Science Festival", thank you Prof. Brian Green! Thank you Susana Martinez-Conde, Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, Emily Balcetis.

[esoteric_Derek]

This reminds me of someting I discovered at a very young age(circa 6 years old) that creates an astonishing and breathtaking, even haunting visual effect from repeating film-camera flashes over a period of time, while in the windowless, complete blackout darkness of the family bathroom of our house.

I have always felt so strongly that I wanted to teach and show this illusion to everyone I possibly could, which to date, roughly 30 something...something years later, still only amounts to probably less than 10 people ever(3 or 4 of which were my younger siblings) which always bothered me that I could not get more people to ACUALLY do this because I felt it was incredibly important for some kind of study that was never going to be brought to the attention of any of the right people, presummably grownups who study the brain for academic research, or something) and throughout my entire childhood, at least, this stayed as one of a handful of "mind" discoveries that I had stumbled across that remained at the time, still unknown to the world at large. Kinda a heavy burden but self imposed on some level as I was only a child and had no access to peoples who did things like research brain functionsand stuff like that... Heheh.

And I didn't imagine too many other kids with enough bored time, curiosity, and lack of enough toys, but access to and old 35mm chap camera, but no access to flm to take pictures, for the freak chance to find thmselve at the point to where the effect begins to take place noticably enough to experience the full effect of this effect fully detailed and in perfect visual clarity that gains intensity the longer(or more times) that you trigger the effect. I was maybe kind of a unique kid possibly, so I was in a position to discover the effect in its full 3d photo reality, existing omly within the human head that observes it, buy noticing that the delay between how soon you can take another flash photo concided with a pitch or frequncy that the cameras flash makes as the 2 AA batteries were recharging up whatever thingy(things were thingys in the 1980s)dimped a lot of charge all at once for the extra bright white flash emitted from the camera.

So thinking I as really smart I just wanted to spend hours in the dark bathroom, learning how to tell when the flash was ready again by siund only, without actualy having to check the "Flash Ready" indicator light to know. Interesting to exactly not anyone, nor fun, nor cool, and embarassing to any peers when explaining how to do it I think I probably became aware that it wasnt cool enough to make anyone else take the very elaborate and specific steps in the first place, then a realization that I would be admitting to a peer that I wasn't taught about this, but rather did this long process it takes before I even knew this amazing result existed, by myself, for hours, for fun...sorry I let you all down.

Hopefully I can salvage some of you! This REALLY IS THE MOST ASTONISHING VISUAL EFFECT/ILLUSION THAT ANYONE OF YOU HAS EVER SEEN!!! I absolutely garantee that, if this is not already well documented. And it can be initiated in minutes, probably less than 10 minutes to have the effect coming through quite strongly(extreme clarity). PLEASE, do give this a try, Iit IS worth it. Here is how you can do this and what the effect is:

The effect is this. After "priming" your eyes in any complete dark space with a powerful, single flash, 35mm(disposable) style camera flash, done at 30 to 60 second intervals, and allowing no other visible light to be seen in between the instant flash intervals (this is key - if theres light coming in under the doorway, roll up a towel to block all light), and make sure your eyes are open and attempt to focus on the scene around you in the instant of each flash, then after maybe a dozen or so of these intermittent flash illuminations of your immediate environment. and the subsequnt return to pitch blackness after each time, SOMETHING TRULY AMAZING STARTS TO HAPPEN about 2 or 3 seconds AFTER each flash, , ,

What happens is that whatever you were able to see during the flash, I mean the EXACT field of view you experienced, whether able to focus on something or not able to because not knowing where to look(doesnt matter), that exact moment fades BACK into view gradually geting stronger and more clear until it is 100% as clear and real looking as that milisecond of flash alowed, and this imag, fully 3d just as you percieve normally(albeit with a slightly less amount of color than normal vision in lighted area, not only is pristine in appearance, AFTER the fact of seeing it has happened and ended, here it is fading from the complete blackness, back into view until it is a more perfect and pristine and stereoscopic visible image of that millisecond, more brilliant than any photogragh or video that will ever exist I think, and the image will persist, remaining in perfect clarity, for increasing lengths of time the longer you keep repeatng it, up to and even over 10 full seconds of seeing what you were looking at, but unble to move your view to anything other than that which can be amusing and funny, fun and kinda unnerving all at the same time. Particularly if you image on something familiar that is static or stationary, alweays in the same place, say, like your lavatory sink, then focus your view on where you know the faucet to be, BEFORE you make the flash so that you capture with your eyes the facte when the flash is made, then in the second or two before the view starts to reaoppear to you, turn around 90 degrees, facing the complete oppsit direction, and let the image fade in still looking perfectly like you are still facing the faucet in front of you, but knowing you are not, you will still reach out to touch it because of how starkly real and present the afterimage you are staring at with both eyes is your current spacial orientation.

Trust me, it is way cooler than it sounds to actually experience this. Esspecially if you have another person, or others in with you! Because everyone staring at a their perfect after-image view of on anothers postion in the space will be trying to reach out and touch them to verify that they MUST be right there, and nothing you are looking at will move so you jkust believe it is still the same in the darkness but seeing with perfect clarity!!

Somebody must know what this is called. Please, PLEASE end this nearly 40 year long search for enlightenment(I punned) on this very real, noticeable, repeatable, and demonstrable phenomenon is!!!

Thank you anyone who has insight into this visual effect that my inner 6 year old has been worrying that no one will ever know about at long long last.

I might even offer up one a a small but equally profound(to me anyway) childhood discoveries that I have yet to verify that anyone has yet noticed(but probably few hav), but hey...maybe not. or I promise no more mental mysteries that remain for me unamed phenomin of the working human

[buddycollier]

After a cataract removal surgery I lost the vision in my right eye. For about 5 years after I experienced a kind of confusion where my mind would often not understand what visual information was coming in from the seeing eye. Oddly it wouldn’t be all the elements of a scene just a single object in the scene would be unidentifiable. A simple lamp would present as a lump of color and I would have to investigate with my hands or by moving around the object before my brain could identify it. These kinds of experiences change your relationship to everything.

[seacaster]

Can you imagine what expectations the big news sources can implant into the minds of the general populous and how easy it is to control the narrative. It colors everything we see.

[theex-boxgamer]

Did anybody else fall in love with Dr. Susana? Her intelligence, knowledge, pleasant demeanor, silver locks and smokey voice all combined to make her appeal anything but an illusion! I could have lively repartee with a woman like that forever. Caught me totally off guard! I know; such blatant misogyny!

[NameRequiredSoHere]

I really liked the set, Brian in a chair looking at three large screens, seemingly on a vast stage but probably some green screen and CGI (talk about illusions LOL) Much better than the usual Brady Bunch zoom setup.

[gary]

When you 'highlight' the lines that differentiate the illusion of perception, it obfuscates the real problem of perception, and makes it appear as if it's a trick.

[arminekarapetyan]

I have a Brian Greene neuron in my brain! 😊😊 Amazing content as always, fascinating topics and discussions!

[shrutichakraborty]

Can't wait for the next video by World Science Festival. Loved every second of this video. 🤩