Illusions

After last weeks class I was happy to do a follow up reading on optical illusions. As we were looking at the illusions I was curious in them and had wanted to learn more. I found it fascinating that I could see something that clearly at first glance was not there. The Michaelbach website was my favorite in terms of pictures of illusions.

In the article "Optical Illusions," they defined an illusion as "1. something that decieves or misleads intellectually; 2. perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature" (ACNR Vol. 6 Number 2 May/June 2006). The illusion I was most mislead by was the ballerina. It looked at first glance that she clearly was circling in a clock-wise direction, then all of the sudden it was like my mind played a trick on me. She was moving counter clock-wise. I can see why people would be interested in studing optical illusions, even as far back as Aristotle, people were interested in this idea. I was fooled in terms of perception versus reality while looking at these pictures and I think not only is this an interesting science but also one worth paying attention to.