MetaFilter posts tagged with Perception

"Help me out White Wanda."

sharpener — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:07:21 -0800

"Hewlett Packard computers are racist." [SLYT] So far, this guy seems to be taking it fairly well. Although he's spoiled the Christmas surprise.

What is Right?

orthogonality — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:09:27 -0800

Which of these fribbles looks more intelligent? Please click the link and decide before you read Your handedness may influence your judgment of what you believe to be good or bad. Indeed, human cognition may not involve abstract concepts at all, and may not occur "after" or "on top of" perception, but in concert with it.

A battle of perceived qualities

filthy light thief — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:42:58 -0800

Sennheiser, a family-run company with an interesting history of searching for audiophile quality, has created what it boasts as "the new standard for audiophile headphones." But will it matter in the long run, when the next generation of listeners enjoys the "sizzle sound" associated with lower bitrate MP3s? (via) CNET's Crave has a look at part of the process of assembling the $1,400 (£1,000) headphones by hand. (via) And while debating perceived qualities, do coat hangers sound as good as monster cables?

Near death experience

puckish — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:01:00 -0800

Australian auto website offers anatomy of a crash-- a point by point account of what happens during an accident, up to and including the moment you realize it's happening. "One way to appreciate the slowness of your perception is to compare it to the speed of mechanical devices. Take this incredible, sobering "anatomy of a crash"....With fine-grained temporal resolution, it analyzes what happens when a stationary Ford Falcon XT sedan is struck in the driver’s door by another vehicle traveling at 50 kilometers per hour" (via 3quarksdaily) Of related interest: David Eagleman on whether our perception of time slows down during terrifying events (short answer: no) and how you would test this in the first place (short answer: strap a chronometer to your test subject and throw him off a building)

The Body Swap Illusion

homunculus — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:18:25 -0800

If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping. Expanding on previous experiments, researchers discover how to induce a "body-swap" illusion, whereby subjects perceive the body of another as if it were their own.

metaphors be with you

nickyskye — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:18:07 -0800

Link found between physical and emotional warmth l Metaphors of the Mind: Why Loneliness Feels Cold and Sins Feel Dirty. "Our mental processes are not separate and detached from the body". Sensory metaphors l The Metaphor Observatory, top 10 metaphors of 2007.

Lacking Control Increases Magical Thinking

homunculus — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 14:20:22 -0800

Of Jock Straps and Conspiracy Theories. A new study looks at how lacking control increases the tendency for magical thinking and illusory pattern perception. [Via]

color is relative

nickyskye — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:58:24 -0800

Color Is Relative, pretty and interesting eye candy created by Gabriel Mott, is a website dedicated to showing luminosity achieved through simple color combinations. On the site, the image is interactive. By moving the mouse over a single swatch the background color of the page will change to the same color. Seeing Things: Color is Relative on Facebook. Gabe's blog, FunkyEnough."In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is - as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art."-Josef Albers Video that explains halation and how color is relative.

Here's looking at you/me, kid

cogneuro — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:31:13 -0800

More good stuff for people who like visual ("optical") illusions (previously): A nice Scientific American article, a particularly creepy illusion, and a link to the "Best visual illusion of the year" contest. Given that the eye/mind/brain is so easy to trick, a person might wonder what's really out there in the world.

Ear-sighted

Kronos_to_Earth — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:30:02 -0800

"People with synaesthesia can’t help but get two sensory perceptions for the price of one. Some perceive colours when they hear words or musical notes, or read numbers; rarer individuals can even get tastes from shapes." (previously) Neuroscientist Melissa Saenz of the California Institute of Technology has discovered a new form [pdf] of synaesthesia. Can you hear the dots? (QT)

Kids? Who'd have 'em?

muthecow — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:42:22 -0800

Ze Frank asks when the first time you saw your parents as just being human was.

Chick Sexing

parudox — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 10:14:53 -0800

"Over and over he scoops up a chick with his left hand, expels its droppings with a squeeze of his thumb, opens its vent with his fingers, peers through the magnifying lenses attached to his spectacles and determines its sex." It's a dirty job (YT). Sexing chicks early is important so that the cockerels can be separated and culled^ or fed to be broilers^. The obvious differences take weeks to develop, so when the vent sexing method was developed in Japan in the 1920s, professional chicken sexers became sought after. After years of training, they can sex a thousand day-old chicks an hour with 99% accuracy. In many cases the sexer cannot say why he made a particular decision. The method is learned mostly empirically and is not open to introspection, which has made it of considerable interest to philosophers and cognitive scientists. Vent sexing is in decline, however, owing to development of feather sexing (i.e. using breeds with differences in feather length or color). Would you like to learn to sex chicks? There are plenty of resources, such as A Guide to Sexing Chicks (1935). Better yet, The Specialist Chick Sexer is a modern treatment (there is an extract and another poultry essay available). You can sex all fowl, actually. Cognitive scientists, philosophers, and psychologists all like chicken sexing. Biederman (of geon^ fame) and Shiffrar showed (PDF) that novices can be trained to decent accuracy with explicit perceptual clues. There's a discussion of chicken sexing in the defunct PSYCHE-B cognitive science listserv (more useful archive here). Scroll down to see it, particularly Bruce Mangan's post. (There was an earlier post, and the main link is good if you can get access.)

DIY Illusions

sushiwiththejury — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:18:48 -0800

Snacks about Perception. Via. Previously from the Exploratorium.

Silhouette pirouette

painquale — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 20:00:07 -0800

Is the dancer spinning clockwise or counterclockwise? An optical illusion. Ignore the right brain/left brain gobblydegook.

A horse is a horse... Unless of course...

Effigy2000 — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:53:07 -0800

Are Zebras black with white stripes, or white with black stripes? Find the answer to this, plus many other fun zebra facts and many great zebra pictures and photos for your desktop at the appropriately titled Fun Zebra Pictures & Facts website. And funnily enough, the stripes are actually meant to work as camouflage. For further reading, you can learn more about the varied lives of Africa's Zebras here.

Big Hairy Mystery

CCBC — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 02:27:15 -0800

Who is taller, Bin Laden or Bigfoot? Bernard Heuvelmans says: “A creature covered with long hair always looks bigger than it really is...” For that matter how big is Rambo? Or Arnold Schwartzenegger? (Play the game!) How tall are you?

Manila in my mind

micketymoc — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:19:48 -0800

“It seems that everytime I get a request from a western photojournalist to do a project on Manila, it's always about the slums and squatters and I am sick of it.” Carlos Celdran is well known for his chatty walking tours of Manila, and he’s tired of the one-track perception Westerners have of the city. Manila as slum gothic – low-hanging fruit for lazy photojournalists or writers? Or is a fairer perspective (in more ways than one) possible?

Video Ergo Sum

homunculus — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 19:31:50 -0800

Virtual Out-of-Body Experience. Using two procedures to deliberately scramble a person's visual and tactile senses, neuroscientists are able to induce "out-of-body" experiences in people. The effect is the same as the 'rubber hand illusion', but extends the effect to the whole body instead of just one limb (you can try the hand illusion for yourself).

language of music

nickyskye — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:14:16 -0800

Essential tones of music rooted in human speech. Original Duke University paper by Deborah Ross, Jonathan Choi and Dale Purves [pdf].

Illusion is the first of all pleasures

MetaMonkey — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:59:18 -0800

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures "

Trippy optical illusion

brain_drain — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:31:22 -0800

Your daily dose of perception-bending. Stare at the center of this video (wmv or flash) for a minute or two then look away from the screen at your surroundings. You'll experience an interesting and somewhat disconcerting effect. Not appropriate for anyone prone to headaches or seizures.

The Doors of Perception

jason's_planet — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 07:51:08 -0800

We’ve detected background radiation from the Big Bang. We’ve sent explorers to the bottom of the ocean and the moon above us. We have images of the individual atoms of which our world is made. But we cannot have direct access to the sensory experiences of another human being. Language can help to bridge the gap but it is an imperfect tool. The closest we have come is Brain Fingerprinting and even that only indicates recognition of a scene or object; it does not capture the actual visual memory of the scene or object. This may soon change. Several years ago, researchers at Berkeley wired a cat’s neurons to a computer and were able to obtain videos of what the cat was seeing.

Aletheia

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 01:18:26 -0800

Beethoven stretches out and relaxes. Gorillas belch to let others know where they are. Fish sing the body electric (.mov, 12 MB) for food and safety. How has your own perception shaped your worldview?

2D => 3D

MetaMonkey — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:38:57 -0800

Carnegie Mellon researchers have created a program that can automatically generate a 3-D model from a single photograph, using machine learning. Take a look at this high-res comparison of original and generated images, also demonstration animations and downloadable videos (with executables). [via /. see also: a little on human 3d perception at everything2, groovy dragon illusion]

Switching off self-awareness

0bvious — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 19:16:23 -0800

Researchers have found that prolonged concentration on a difficult task actually switches off a person's self awareness. Fancy experiencing this sensation for yourself? That would be an oxymoron in existence. Just lay back and let the orgasm take hold.