Which of these fribbles looks more intelligent? Please click the link and decide before you read [more inside]
posted by orthogonality on Aug 4, 2009 - 111 comments

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) [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Mar 16, 2009 - 118 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by puckish on Feb 19, 2009 - 15 comments

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.
posted by homunculus on Dec 4, 2008 - 22 comments

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.
posted by nickyskye on Oct 27, 2008 - 45 comments

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]
posted by homunculus on Oct 5, 2008 - 87 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Aug 29, 2008 - 13 comments

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.
posted by cogneuro on Aug 28, 2008 - 26 comments

"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)
posted by Kronos_to_Earth on Aug 5, 2008 - 75 comments

Ze Frank asks when the first time you saw your parents as just being human was.
posted by muthecow on May 20, 2008 - 87 comments

"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. [more inside]
posted by parudox on Nov 19, 2007 - 37 comments

Snacks about Perception. Via. [more inside]
posted by sushiwiththejury on Nov 16, 2007 - 6 comments

Is the dancer spinning clockwise or counterclockwise? An optical illusion. [more inside]
posted by painquale on Oct 8, 2007 - 133 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by Effigy2000 on Oct 5, 2007 - 40 comments

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?
posted by CCBC on Sep 13, 2007 - 38 comments

“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?
posted by micketymoc on Aug 28, 2007 - 18 comments

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).
posted by homunculus on Aug 24, 2007 - 11 comments

Essential tones of music rooted in human speech. Original Duke University paper by Deborah Ross, Jonathan Choi and Dale Purves [pdf].
posted by nickyskye on Jun 28, 2007 - 49 comments

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures"
posted by MetaMonkey on Nov 7, 2006 - 12 comments

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.
posted by brain_drain on Aug 28, 2006 - 51 comments

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.
posted by jason's_planet on Aug 14, 2006 - 50 comments

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?
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Aug 14, 2006 - 4 comments

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]
posted by MetaMonkey on Jun 14, 2006 - 42 comments

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.
posted by 0bvious on Apr 20, 2006 - 31 comments

The Musical Listening test is harder than it sounds, no pun intended. Hosted at the University of Newcastle at Tyne, it is a study of musical perception in the general population. Listen to two short melodic phrases and decide if they are the same or different.
posted by pjern on Feb 7, 2006 - 57 comments

Color Stereo Stereograms Directory
posted by Gyan on Feb 4, 2006 - 7 comments

If the universe is a hologram and the healthy human brain a valve of consciousness then where'd this mental infinity come from? Are we simply living the simulacrum? Or does Pi protect us all, forever, infinitely?
posted by 0bvious on Nov 22, 2005 - 39 comments

Masters of Deception "There are a number of incredible artistic works featured in Masters of Deception, which require movement to appreciate their full impact. Additionally, I had in my possession various interviews with some of the book's featured artists that I wanted to share with my readership. Unfortunately, the publisher was unwilling to produce a CD to accompany the book. I have created this web site, therefore, to augment and enhance the reader's experience by presenting those works and interviews that I could not present in book form." Al Seckel. enjoy.
posted by hortense on Aug 19, 2005 - 3 comments

Greg's Digital Portfolio Here's the way to make everybody unhappy with their own life. With Photoshop and other imaging tools, the advertising industry has implanted images of such impossible perfection that the things we encounter in our lives seem somehow tawdry and inqdequate. Greg is a "digital pre-press" artist that manipulates images to make them prettier, smoother, and more appealing--he makes the imperfect look perfect. On one hand, I am in awe of the command he has of his craft. But just as waxed apples make real apples seem uhealthy and crappy, what do such images of digitally mediated reality do for our relationship with the real world?
posted by curtm on May 9, 2005 - 41 comments

The Human Condition. A Mac-based homage to Magritte. [via]
posted by Slithy_Tove on Mar 29, 2005 - 20 comments

How do we see? This site by Dr. Dale Purves makes it obvious we don't see things like a camera in any way. Check out the interactive demos, test your perceptual abilities, and read the research explaining why this happens. Number 12: Color Contrast Cube is particularly startling. Warning: Totally Flash interface, but appropriate for subject matter. More experiments at a less Flash-y associate's site.
posted by JZig on Feb 10, 2005 - 19 comments

If rats can distinguish between Japanese and Dutch , why would Elvis have looked like this at age 70?
posted by mcgraw on Jan 9, 2005 - 21 comments

Sounding Art: Paintings by a synethete. [?]
posted by moonbird on Aug 1, 2004 - 5 comments

Red and green dots have never been so interesting. At least to a geek like me. I love it when my brain plays tricks on me.
posted by jeremy on May 21, 2004 - 33 comments

The maps of perception.
2nd link: java applet.
posted by Gyan on Apr 25, 2004 - 6 comments

Remember the weirdness with Bush's hypnotic rainbow tie last week? Now you too can experiment with creating mesmerizing patterns on Project LITE's Moire page.
[via j-walk blog]
posted by moonbird on Apr 19, 2004 - 5 comments

The McGurk Effect
posted by knutmo on Apr 16, 2004 - 38 comments

The McCollough effect is a visual illusion somewhat similar to regular color aftereffects, but the working mechanism is different, and despite a wealth of theories, not entirely explained. Once the effect is established, it does not seem to go away and can last for days or even weeks. Proceed at your own risk.
posted by ikalliom on Apr 10, 2004 - 22 comments

The Thatcher Illusion (using Madonna) , the original, Bush
posted by srboisvert on Mar 21, 2004 - 25 comments

sandlot science ... optical illusions and visual oddities... hundreds of exhibits and interactive demonstrations.
posted by crunchland on Nov 3, 2003 - 4 comments

Rupert Sheldrake, author of several books (The Sense of Being Stared At; Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home) that detail evidence for the existence of various extra-sensory perceptions. In a lecture for Microsoft Research [page contains link to a 73 minute streaming ASX file] entitled "The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence", he attacks the mechanistic view of nature and the materialistic view of the mind, and presents his own theory, which involves fields of Morphic Resonance, formative causation, and what he calls "The Extended Mind". Feel free to dismiss after watching.
posted by goethean on Oct 21, 2003 - 38 comments

You think it's moving but it's not.
posted by xmutex on Jul 24, 2003 - 85 comments

What's wrong with these pictures? I thought I knew at least a little bit about art until I took this quiz. That, plus the blurb about spider-goats (eew!) makes me think that maybe decaf isn't strong enough to kick-start my brain this Friday morning.
posted by Oriole Adams on Feb 7, 2003 - 22 comments

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.
posted by taz on Sep 27, 2002 - 29 comments

"One of my earliest memories is that I could tell the difference between Canadian and American accents because the Canadian accent is more yellow." Most of us would have to take some heavy drugs to start seeing sounds. But it's how this lady lives her life. Kinda makes you think about how we percieve the world around us, and if what you see is the same as what the person next to you is seeing...
posted by CrayDrygu on Apr 17, 2001 - 13 comments