Visual Illusions Essay

The human brain is capable of perceiving and interpreting information or stimuli received through the sense organs (i.e., eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin) (Weiten, 1998). This ability to perceive and interpret stimulus allows the human being to make meaningful sense of the world and environment around them. However, even as the human being is able to perceive and interpret stimuli information through all sense organs, stimuli is most often or primarily interpreted using the visual (eyes) and auditory (ears) sense organs (Anderson, 2009). However, for the purpose of this paper, the visual information process will be examined.

After being shown a picture of an elephant they eye will take the light that is reflected from the object and it will enter the eye through the pupil. Then the light will be focused by the cornea and the lens to form a sharp image of the elephant in the retina. The retina is the network of neurons that cover the back of the eye and contains the visual receptors for a person vision. The visual receptors are made up of cones and rods that contain light sensitive chemicals called visual pigments. Visual pigments reacht to light and cause a triggered electrical signals to occur. These electrical signals will then flow through a network of neurons and this network of neurons is what makes up a persons retina. After the flow through the network of neurons occurs the electrical signals will emerge from the back of the eye in the area

Also, on the retina is the optic disk. There are no photoreceptors in this area, so any light that falls on this part of the retina is unseen and creates what is called the blind spot. (Hugh

One wonders what an optical illusion is, “an optical illusion is a visually perceived image that differs from reality.” (Eifrig, 2014, n.p.). There are so many different types of optical illusions in which play with the brains of people. Optical illusions are normal because the majority of humans experience them. Humans’ vision tries its best to figure out what is happening to the picture, which then creates an image contradicting reality. Sometimes illusions can be entertaining because it fools the brain and one tries to figure out the image shown. Illusions cannot only be in a form of art but sometimes it happens whenever reading something without putting much effort.

Reading Chapter 7, Taking Action, helped me to better understand the ways in which perceptual processes such as ones that are being physically active in the world. Through most of the 20th century, the dominant way perception research was carried out was by having stationary observer look at static stimuli in a laboratory situation. Gibson argued that this traditional way of studying perception lacked ecological validity. Ecological perception is defined as a valid experiment that matches its stimuli, conditions, and procedures to those present in the natural world. There are three separate optic flows including: gradient of flow, focus of expansion, and self-produced information. Gradient of flow is the difference in flow as a function of distance from the observer. Focus of expansion is the point in distance where

There is perfect correspondence between the retinal image and the cellular encoding in V1 (striate cortex), which is completed in terms of contrast and orientation. From there, information from the retinal image is sent forward to distinct regions of the occipital lobe for more complex encoding, called extra striate cortex, including V2 (discrimination, orientation, and color), V4 (shape), and V5 (motion) “(Stevens PH.D., livestong.com)

Humans have a unique and wonderful device in how one sees. The eye and brain work together to turn the world into visual data one’s brain can understand and use. There are some eye conditions that inhibit the sight or the recognition of the shapes one sees. Research continues to overcome these conditions as well as to further understand the biochemical reaction that gives humans the sight and understanding one has of visual data. Included in the paper are some of the latest research methods.

Some the earliest optical illusions date back all the way to 450 B.C. and were made by Epicharmus and Protagoras. From tricking us that a duck is actually a rabbit to making us believe that a still image is moving, optical illusions give us the sense that we are seeing something that is actually not happening. In reality, an image might be some black and white circles but, to our eyes the might look like it's moving. I believe that you can’t trust your eyes in these situations because your eyes are sending the wrong information to your brain. Optical Illusions are an interesting way in how our eyes are tricked into seeing and believing the wrong

The Magnocellular pathway carries information from the M ganglion cells at rapid speed along the dorsal stream to the parietal lobe to help us understand motion, spatial relationships and contrast. The Parvocellular pathway carries information from the P ganglion cells at slower speed along the ventral stream to the temporal lobe to help us process fine details of such as color and form of an object. It is thought that the Parvocellular pathway is our primary source for recognition and identification, but there are speculations that its allocentric frame of reference can also be used in a more egocentric approach (i.e., the Parvocellular pathway is able to elicit an autonomic response like the Magnocellular pathway). This research expands on these theories by studying the role of color vision in autonomic attention responses. The experiment attempts to study the relationship between the Magnocellular pathway and Parvocellular pathway through color cues and its effects in capturing attention and control visual behavior (e.g., moving the eyes to locate the

Visual information processing has a big neural investment in the cortical region of the brain. This is an inherited investment, that has evolved to

The optic nerve reaches from behind the eyes to the occipital lobe where this visual information can finally be interpreted into what we know as ‘seeing something’. It is at this point that it is useful as this is when colours can be perceived (Breedlove, 2010).

Perception is defined as how you look at others and the world around you. Being able to select, organize and intercept information starts the perceptual process. Perception affects the way people communicate with others. An individual’s pattern of thinking can affect their perception of others. Most people communicate best with people of similar cultures.

We see things with our eyes through different visual cues this is called “Depth Perception”. “Depth perception is the use of two different types of visual cues to perceive depth, Binocular cues and Monocular cues” (Department of Psychology,2015). “Depth perception lets us view items in three dimensions and the distance of items. We use several cues to perceive the distance (or depth) of the objects from us and from each other” (Department of Psychology,2015). Goldstein (1984) stated that Cues for seeing depth come from binocular disparity, and also from a range of monocular cues such as motion parallax, linear perspective, relative size, interposition, relative height, and texture gradients. (as cited in Laboratory Manual: Psychology 111/112