"The observers of this unusual visual stimulus reported seeing the borders between the stripes gradually disappear, and the colors seem to flood into each other. Amazingly, the image seemed to override their eyes' opponency mechanism, and they said they perceived colors they'd never seen before."
posted by Slap*Happy
on Jan 23, 2012 -
30 comments
About 8% of the male population has some sort of color vision deficiency. The
color blind are unable to clearly distinguish different colors of the spectrum, they tend to see colors in a limited range of hues. Because of this, the color blind have trouble with a lot of websites. The patterns and examples on
We Are Color Blind help developers create websites the color deficient can use with minimal problems. Take a
color vision test to see where you stand.
50 facts about color blindness.
posted by netbros
on Sep 28, 2009 -
93 comments
Recently, a man's sight was
returned to him after losing it for 12 years. How did he do it? Surgeons drilled a hole through one of his canines, put a lens in it, and implanted the construct in his eye.
[more inside]
posted by scrutiny
on Jul 18, 2009 -
65 comments
The
Academy of Achievement brings students face-to-face with the extraordinary leaders, thinkers and pioneers who have shaped our world. Through profiles, biographies, and interviews Achievers in
The Arts,
Business,
Public Service,
Science, and
Sports teach us how the Academy's core values of
passion,
vision,
preparation,
courage,
perseverance, and
integrity can, and will, lead to success.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jan 1, 2009 -
6 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
"Double-Taker (Snout)" by Golan Levin with Lawrence Hayhurst, Steven Benders and Fannie White "...deals in a whimsical manner with the themes of trans-species eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood, and autonomous surveillance. The project consists of an eight-foot (2.5m) long industrial robot arm, costumed to resemble an enormous inchworm or elephant's trunk, which responds in unexpected ways to the presence and movements of people in its vicinity...."
Googly Eyebot. (
via)
[more inside]
posted by Kronos_to_Earth
on Aug 13, 2008 -
3 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
Fortunes are rarely won by playing it safe. On the contrary, the biggest fortunes have been won by those willing to step outside the box and change the way the game is played. Following are
twenty-five business innovators of the past, present, and future whose stories are different in many respects, but all point to the same truth: Ingenuity, improvisation, and daring are more important than following the rules (even though you might find yourself on the wrong side of the law once in a while). Via Fortune.
[more inside]
posted by infini
on Aug 2, 2008 -
31 comments
See For Yourself - Purves Lab's optical illusions web page with empirical explanations of familiar and unfamiliar illusions.
posted by nthdegx
on Nov 16, 2007 -
6 comments
Hacking the Senses: The brain is far more plastic than we commonly realize. Presenting new 'senses' via the old inputs works extremely well, to the point that long-term volunteers are a little lost without their new abilities to feel magnetic north or absolute orientation. Tasting direction; feeling pictures. Fascinating stuff. In a loosely related article,
genetically modified mice are able to see the full color range visible to humans, even though the last natural mouse able to see this way died out a hundred million years ago. Add the new sensors, and the brain reconfigures.
[via]
posted by Malor
on Apr 5, 2007 -
68 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
'Twas blind, but now I see? — Virgil surgically regained his sight after nearly 50 years of blindness: "
On the day he returned home after the bandages were removed, his house and its contents were unintelligible to him, and he had to be led up the garden path, led through the house, led into each room, and introduced to each chair." In the end, he and
others like him
[PDF] would have rather stayed in the
Country of the Blind.
(A happier ending was the more recent case of Mike Mays, previously posted here.)
posted by cenoxo
on Jun 17, 2006 -
19 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
Surgical Eyes - source of info about complications and their treatment from Lasik and other vision correction surgeries.
posted by Gyan
on Jan 31, 2005 -
35 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
