Imperfect Perception: Illusions, Gestalt Principles of Grouping, and Language Relativism

We learned about sensation and perception in the biopsychology series. But there is a lot more to talk about in the context of psychology, in terms of imperfect perception. Do we always see things the way they really are? Can our minds play tricks on us? How do we perceive groups of objects? How does language affect our perceptions? Some of this stuff might blow your mind!

Script by Caitlyn Finton

Check out "Is This Wi-Fi Organic?", my book on disarming pseudoscience!

[rgmafi]

This is just great foundational knowledge. I was taught how the checkered shadow illusion works multiple times and NEVER got it. That rectangular connection blew my fucking mind. Thank you sir.

[markfarnsworth]

Back in the 90s when I was in grad school, my linguistics professors were _highly_ allergic to anything even hinting at Sapir-Whorf. If you chanced to mention that hypothesis, they’d look at you like the hostess of an elegant dinner party would look at a loudly and repeatedly farting guest. I was always puzzled by that because it seems obvious to me that language and perception influence each other. I felt vindicated when I read Guy Deutscher’s book, Through the Language Glass. Great vid, by the way!

You just revived an interest on human perception I had some time ago.

[liptonpipton]

Great vid Dave!
As a Russian I have to say that in Russian language light green means - салатовый (salatoviy) and common green - зелёный (zelonyi).
But that not a thing in whole country.

[larrykent]

Professor Dave, very interesting concept and well done explaining it. Thank you for what you do. Cheers!

[WanderTheNomad]

I was longing so hard for proof that the two rectangles were actually the same color in that short amount of time between you explaining it and you showing it.
I tried to connect the two colors in my mind but I just couldn't do it.

[ofdlttwo]

Awesome! You probably don't want to dig into these "perceptions/sensations" that flat earths have. But I would love to see it.

[jacqslabz]

9:51 the funny part is when you observe this happening in your own mind for things that are not color. How having a word to describe something (a name for it) makes it easier for your mind to "interface" with the concept.

I noticed this the other day with yoga asana/poses I'm learning. Having a name for that pose makes it easier to remember the pose, as opposed to just thinking of it as "oh the one that's like blah blah blah body part position blah blah" - I guess because it's a mental shortcut? Once I learned the name, I could remember it much more completely & easily.

See also the beginning of Over The Hedge where they name it Steve at first.

[mamin]

Ight but did nobody notice how your animation is actually really good now

[Snwar]

our signal processing professor at university beautifully used to say that our brain basically does fourier transformations for us since timedependent wave inputs like sound and light get processed to be timeINdependent tones or colors.

[YuvrajSingh-wfjn]

Such a deep explanation. That explains why I don't feel tired while going to college but feel to tired while going to a shop.

[SLMusic]

It’s been awhile since I’ve been exposed to perception and illusions. Thanks for the video Dave!

[bettercalldelta]

The chessboard shadow illusion also gets impacted by expectation, because we remember how a chessboard looks and that a white shade should be in the B tile

[MrJeanMaker]

I have a theory that the reason we don't remeber our life when we were babies is because we didn't speak yet, making impossible for us to form memories since we couldn't describe them to ourselfs. It's hard to explain but if you think about it, it makes sense. I also believe that our perception of time is related with language. If we couldn't count time in any way using words or numbers, how would we understand it's passing? Yeah, we would still have the sun, days and nights, but I don't think we would care about weeks, months and years. We would have no way to know our bithdays, so years wouldn't matter too.

[MaryAnnNytowl]

I'm usually very good at telling colors and hues apart, better than most I know, but the shadows thing gets me nearly every time, especially when I'm tired. 😄

[madaemon]

For an extra little mind trip, start at 2:40 where Prof Dave has made the bridge, pause it, then press the left arrow once to go back about five seconds. Look back and forth between A and B while it's paused, and even though it's a still frame, the A square will seem to "darken" and the B square "lighten" Even though you've already confirmed they're the same color, your brain forgets and slips back into its original perception. Do it a few times; it's pretty cool!

[Nikson]

Excellent video as usual, this is fascinating stuff. On a side note, have you considered throwing your images here up on a darker background? I frequent your tutorials at night and the eye strain is really starting to take its toll. Thanks!

[arcadiusvincentius]

Thanks for another great video! I'm really doing well in my astronomy class because of your videos! Great teacher!!

[ilyas_elouchihi]

The best notification today, thanks Dave!

[AndyMarsh]

Fascinating stuff, Thanks. On the subject of colour perception, Technology Connections video on the colour Brown is very interesting.