MetaFilter posts tagged with opticalillusions

The science behind spook hills

cog_nate — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:24:51 -0800

""Anti-Gravity Hills" (also known as "Gravity Hills", "Spook Hills", or "Magnetic Hills") are natural places where cars put into neutral are seen to move uphill on a slightly sloping road, apparently defying the law of gravity. Typically, the "spooky" stretch of road is rather short (50-90 m), only a few meters wide, and surrounded by a natural hill landscape, without nearby buildings. Such places are found in several countries all around the world, and have been tourist attractions for decades. They should not be confused with the "Mystery Spots" [previously] found in amusement parks. These are generally tilted cabins, purposely built as such; a person walking inside feels disoriented, getting a very strong impression of standing at an angle in a perfectly normal room." CSICOP and Discovery News explain the phenomenon, and here's the paper on which the CSICOP article was based (PDF).

John Thurlow's Web Sites for Kids & Teachers

cybercoitus interruptus — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 12:24:15 -0800

John Thurlow's Web Sites for Kids & Teachers. The Thinking page of this treasure trove of kid-safe sites includes links that are also appropriate for adults who just like to play around, such as Funderstanding's Roller Coast Simulation, and Lightness Perception and Lightness Illusions. (The "Thinking" page also links to Planarity, Thinking Machine 4, which makes visible the computer chess player's thought process, and Michael Bach's optical illusions, all of which have been previously posted at Mefi).

Play With Your Blind Spot

cybercoitus interruptus — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 20:54:56 -0800

Blind Spot Optical Illusions. Online seminar from McCormick Lab at Yale lets you find your own visual blind spots. After that, you can make Monet's sun, and Van Gogh's ear, disappear. Map your blind spot. Adapt to color (1, 2). Adapt to motion (making things swirl). Student Letters: "Dear Mr McCormick, Please don't suck out our brains!" (The student's reference to "gummies" may possibly refer to novelty candy from here.) Previously.

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.

Optical illusions

OmieWise — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 07:15:13 -0800

Optical illusions and why they look that way.

That works pretty well.

fearfulsymmetry — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:39:41 -0800

10 optical illusions in 2 minutes - SLYT, Samsung promotion.

Door Game

Rumple — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:24:38 -0800

The predictably irrational door game. The optical illusion demonstrations are also good (scroll down half page).

motion induced blindness

elemenopee — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:11:41 -0800

Motion induced blindess. Be sure to check out the other really cool stuff

You got me trippin.'

datawrangler — Fri, 04 Jul 2003 13:32:34 -0800

You got me trippin.' For those of you who miss some of the visuals of controlled substances. Not high-tech, but some fun candy.

The pain! The Pain!

crunchland — Wed, 08 Jan 2003 18:04:36 -0800

These links are probably best viewed only by the blind.

bhell13 — Mon, 07 Oct 2002 16:57:39 -0800

M.C. Escher + Lego = ? I used to make spaceships and houses with my Lego not 3D representations of famous optical illusions! [via Filepile]

taz — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 01:27:26 -0800

A professor of vision science at MIT understands that life isn't just black and white, even though we often see it that way. This amazing illusion proves it, and these slick, fast-loading, Flash demonstrations of lightness perception show how it's done. (My favorite is the "Koffka Ring".) White paper here, for deeper background.

Shadowkeeper — Thu, 18 Oct 2001 12:29:37 -0800

I'm usually not a big fan of optical illusions (unless there's a nice magic trick built around it), but this one is pretty brain-burning. (Yes, that's my entire front-page post. But hey: at least it ain't a news story.)