Our senses can sometimes play tricks on us. Image Credit: sxc.hu
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed an intriguing new sensory illusion.
Known as the 'Rabbit Illusion', this mind-bending brain teaser has been designed to show how our senses can influence each other and in particular, how sounds can give rise to visual illusions.
To try the illusion for yourself, watch the video below (before reading the explanation.)
The illusion works by bombarding your senses with a rapid series of beeps and flashes. The idea is to determine how many flashes there were - did you see two or three ?
Although most people will see three flashes, the correct answer is that there were only two.
The illusion demonstrates a phenomenon known as postdiction in which a stimulus that occurs later can alter our perception of something that happened previously.
In this case, hearing three beeps influences our perception of how many flashes there were.
"Illusions are a really interesting window into the brain," said first author Noelle Stiles. "By investigating illusions, we can study the brain's decision-making process. For example, how does the brain determine reality with information from multiple senses that is at times noisy and conflicting?"
I assume they mean that your brain "goes back in time" and inserts a flash that your eyes never saw. Our brains lie to us all the time about what we've seen and heard. The brain tries to make sense of all the input it gets (and doesn't get) and constructs a story that fits.
The failed to state where the explanation was written. I assumed it would be written after the video. They could simply have written: "Here's the explanation!" above the explanation. Knuckleheads!
Stupid. All this shows is that some people hear things and make assumptions without being observant enough to look and see theres only 2 flashes. Was not illusory for me. I think with all the viral success of prior illusions they were hard pressed to continue. I didnt read the explanation, watched, and could clearly see what was happening and guess what they expected you to think. Not very impressive. If people are falling for it this just says to me some acknowledge thier hearing over thier sight. But we all know that after enough u.m. discussions right?
You can't rationalize to throw things off just like that, but nice try, but tricking the brain into seeing more beeps by correlating them with the sounds is not equal to songs and events with dates after and prior, Not by a long shot. Now we know we can trick the brain into seeing more flashes than there are there, by convincing it that flashes and the beeps are correlated. That's like tricking your dog that you threw the ball. You are simply using the expectation against the perception. Not using the perception to alter the future outcome. This isn't time travel or manifestation, it's ... [More]
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