Optical Illusions are a neurological phenomenon that allows a person to believe an alternate reality based on what they see visually or encounter haptically. Illusions can come in all shapes and sizes and can be presented to us in many different ways sometimes, subliminally throughout our daily lives. The most famous and widely studied illusion is the Muller-Lyer illusion. This illusion consists of a horizontal line with opposite facing arrows at either end. The next portion uses the same horizontal line, however the arrows at either end are facing opposite directions than the arrows in the first sequence. When a person examines the Muller-Lyer they generally feel that one the lines are longer than the other, when in fact they are actually
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Neuroscientists generally study these illusions in an effort to disassociate the neural activity and the perception of certain stimuli (Macknick, et al, 2008). To gain a better understanding of why these illusions are successful, neuroscientists believe that by understanding which regions are affected by these illusions we can understand how they are processed. An example of this is the bending spoon ilusion, by moving the spoon up and down with our hands the spoon rocks side to side by momentum. The illusion of the spoon bending is actually caused by a neural compensation phenomena known as neural adaptation to the conflicting stimulus (Macknick, et al 2008). Throughout history these illusions have helped neuroscientists to gain a better understanding of how visual perception can be affected the …show more content…
Unconscious processing can encode and bind information in similar ways that the conscious processing system can, these systems both process information through the primary visual cortex and can be activated by stimuli like shape and color (Emmanouil et al, 2013). Our ability to process these massive amounts of information unconsciously is the basis that cognitive optical illusions function on, and this ability may in some cases make humans more susceptible to optical illusions not only consciously but also unconsciously. A common stereotype of optical illusions is that are generally pretty bad and we must always be on the lookout to not be fooled. While this is true, we should always be weary of deception there may be a positive benefit to optical illusions and a connection to sports. Dr. Jessica Witt, psychological scientist at Purdue University has made the claim that golfers are 10 percent more likely to make a putt when the hole appears to be larger than it really is (Sifferlin, 2012). The experiment studied 36 university students, putting a golf ball up a ramp to a hole that could not be seen from where the golfers were standing. The experimenters used a projector to create an illusion of the hole surrounded by several small rings, causing
Neuroscientists generally study these illusions in an effort to disassociate the neural activity and the perception of certain stimuli (Macknick, et al, 2008). To gain a better understanding of why these illusions are successful, neuroscientists believe that by understanding which regions are affected by these illusions we can understand how they are processed. An example of this is the bending spoon ilusion, by moving the spoon up and down with our hands the spoon rocks side to side by momentum. The illusion of the spoon bending is actually caused by a neural compensation phenomena known as neural adaptation to the conflicting stimulus (Macknick, et al 2008). Throughout history these illusions have helped neuroscientists to gain a better understanding of how visual perception can be affected the …show more content…
Unconscious processing can encode and bind information in similar ways that the conscious processing system can, these systems both process information through the primary visual cortex and can be activated by stimuli like shape and color (Emmanouil et al, 2013). Our ability to process these massive amounts of information unconsciously is the basis that cognitive optical illusions function on, and this ability may in some cases make humans more susceptible to optical illusions not only consciously but also unconsciously. A common stereotype of optical illusions is that are generally pretty bad and we must always be on the lookout to not be fooled. While this is true, we should always be weary of deception there may be a positive benefit to optical illusions and a connection to sports. Dr. Jessica Witt, psychological scientist at Purdue University has made the claim that golfers are 10 percent more likely to make a putt when the hole appears to be larger than it really is (Sifferlin, 2012). The experiment studied 36 university students, putting a golf ball up a ramp to a hole that could not be seen from where the golfers were standing. The experimenters used a projector to create an illusion of the hole surrounded by several small rings, causing