seeing through the illusion

Schizophrenia sufferers aren’t fooled by an optical illusion known as the “hollow mask” that the rest of us fall for because connections between the sensory and conceptual areas of their brains might be on the fritz.

In the hollow mask illusion, viewers perceive a concave face (like the back side of a hollow mask) as a normal convex face. The illusion exploits our brain’s strategy for making sense of the visual world: uniting what it actually sees — known as bottom-up processing — with what it expects to see based on prior experience — known as top-down processing.

“Our top-down processing holds memories, like stock models,” explains Danai Dima of Hannover Medical University, in Germany, co-author of a study in NeuroImage. “All the models in our head have a face coming out, so whenever we see a face, of course if has to come out.”

This powerful expectation overrides visual cues, like shadows and depth information, that indicate anything to the contrary.

But patients with schizophrenia are undeterred by implausibility: They see the hollow face for what it is. About seven out of 1000 Americans suffer from the disease, which is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and poor planning. Some psychologists believe this dissociation from reality may result from an imbalance between bottom-up and top-down processing — a hypothesis ripe for testing using the hollow mask illusion.

read Schizophrenic Brains Not Fooled by Optical Illusion

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Tagged as: science,perception,psychology,illusions May 08, 2009 @ 05:20 am

human behaviour is always fascinating…

i’ve posted on this topic before (see: psychology) and i always find it immensely interesting, as it can tell us so much about us, as individuals and as society.

psyblog has an interesting post on Why We do Dumb or Irrational Things: 10 Brilliant Social Psychology Studies...

“I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?”—Philip Zimbardo

he has a list of 10 of the most influential social psychology studies, everything from the milgram experiment to a study on cognitive dissonance.  give it a read, then vote on which you think has the most to teach us about human behaviour.  me, i go with the milgram experiment, because i think people, in general, are pretty willing to go along with whatever proposal is put before them by figures they trust (most authority figures) and i think ~from this~ alot of the behaviour from other studies can be traced.

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Tagged as: science,culture,psychology January 18, 2009 @ 01:02 am

here be dragons! ;o

Here Be Dragons is a free 40 minute video introduction to critical thinking. It is suitable for general audiences and is licensed for free distribution and public display.

Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science.

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Tagged as: religion,atheism,science,fallacies,psychology January 06, 2009 @ 05:34 pm

both of me thinks you should read this!

this was an interesting article, first person plural

An evolving approach to the science of pleasure suggests that each of us contains multiple selves—all with different desires, and all fighting for control. If this is right, the pursuit of happiness becomes even trickier. Can one self bind” another self if the two want different things? Are you always better off when a Good Self wins? And should outsiders, such as employers and policy makers, get into the fray?

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Tagged as: science,psychology October 30, 2008 @ 08:49 am

stcynic @ netroots nation

TV Show hosted by Ustream

from the panel on “restructuring us science policy” at netroots nation this past week - the first speaker is stcynic, from dispatches from the culture wars, a great blog!  his speech was ~excellent~ just as i suspected it would be—“comparing the intelligent design movement to the crackpot index” by using statements from major ID advocates.  humorous speech and a bit worrying that these people are trying to affect our science / education policies. :o

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Tagged as: religion,videos,science,stcynic July 21, 2008 @ 05:38 am