The Müller-Lyer illusion is one of the best-known and most frequently examined optical illusions. After pointing out that it is unlikely that any one account would give a full explanation for all the features of this illusion, I argue for two claims. First, I aim to point out that an essential component of the Müller-Lyer illusion has something to do with picture perception (just as Gregory ini...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES A major stumbling block to teaching and learning the finer skills of laparoscopy is related to the "optical illusions" the video camera plays on the surgeon's eyes. Until now, the belief was that lack of coordination was the result of depth perception deficiencies resulting from the two dimensional plane of the video monitor. In reality, this is a minor problem that is...

The Poggendorff illusion refers to the phenomenon that the human brain misperceives a diagonal line as being apparently misaligned once the diagonal line is interrupted by two parallel edges, and the size of illusion is negatively correlated with the angle of interception of the oblique, i.e. the sharper the oblique angle, the larger the illusion. This optical illusion can be produced by both r...

The Müller-Lyer illusion is one of the best-known and most frequently examined optical illusions. After pointing out that it is unlikely that any one account would give a full explanation for all the features of this illusion, I argue for two claims. First, I aim to point out that an essential component of the Müller-Lyer illusion has something to do with picture perception (just as Gregory ini...

A practical course for preclinical medical students was developed to illustrate aspects of binocular vision and mechanisms of primary visual transduction. It is based on a graphic analysis of two optical illusions, the Pulfrich and the Mach-Dvorak phenomena. A pendulum swinging in a plane perpendicular to the direction of observation appears to follow an elliptical path when viewed binocularly ...

Memory illusions may be defined as cases in which a rememberer’s report of a past event seriously deviates from the event’s actual occurrence. This article introduces the special issue of the Journal of Memory and Language that is devoted to memory illusions by grounding their study in the context of perceptual illusions. Perceptual illusions have been investigated since the 1850s, whereas memo...

Geometrical visual illusions are an intriguing phenomenon, in which subjective perception consistently misjudges the objective, physical properties of the visual stimulus. Prominent theoretical proposals have been advanced attempting to find common mechanisms across illusions. But empirically testing the similarity between illusions has been notoriously difficult because illusions have very dif...

Lateral Thinking is a set of related techniques primarily intended to support creative thinking Lateral Thinking is based on the idea that the Mind is a pattern making and using system The Mind is a Self-Organizing System, not a Passive Recording System The Mind reacts to every input by attempting to fit it into what is already known n This is a good source of Optical Illusions, since it is not...

Grammatical constraints impose diverse requirements on the relations between words and phrases in a sentence. Research on the online implementation of grammatical constraints reveals a strikingly uneven profile. The parser shows impressive accuracy in the application of some rather complex constraints, but makes many errors in the implementation of some relatively simple constraints. Just as th...

In this paper we report on a set of experiments involving perceptual illusions elicited by dynamic tactile stimulation of fingertips. These misperceptions are akin to some well studied optical illusions, which have been given an explanation in terms of the mechanisms of optic flow perception. We hypothesize that a similar perceptual mechanism exists for tactile flow, which is related to how hum...