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Aspects of Virtual Communication

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January 5, 2012 Describe one experience where you were deceived by what you saw: One of the first experiences I have of being deceived by what I was seeing is going to the barbershop. All barbershops have outside the famous barbershop pole which functions as a powerful visual illusion. This visual illusion occurs when a diagonally-striped pole is rotated around its vertical axis horizontally, it appears as though the stripes are moving in the direction of its vertical axis (Seckel, 2005). As a child I believed that the stripes were starting and ending anew in a fascinating infinite pattern. Only later did I learn that the barbershop pole plays on limitations of human perception in relation to vertical motion. Describe one experience where you chose not to believe what you had seen: A recent example of something I have seen that I did not believe was actually real happened just last week. A bright light was shined in my face, causing me to see an afterimage. An afterimage is an optical illusion that refers to an image continuing to appear in one's vision after the exposure to the original image has ceased. I knew that the bright glow that seemed to float before my eyes was not real from experience and merely a byproduct of my optic nerve (Seckel, 2005). Experiences such as in the reading assignment or the barbershop pole and afterimage, force us to question the reliability and impressionability of our visual senses to accurately portray reality. With my own

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