Horizon.

Did anyone watch the recent Horizon Episode "Is Seeing Believing?"

There was one bit where showed someone saying Ba Ba Ba Ba over & over again.
They continued with the Ba Ba sound but changed the visual to the same person miming a Fa Fa Fa sound.
When you saw them miming Fa fa then that was the sound you could hear.
The brain having conflicting messages went with the visual.
It was weird.

Almost as weird was the blind fellow who could ride a bike using tongue clicks as sonar

Here's one of the other illusions
Where the Orange tile is the same colour as the brown one.

I didn't see it but saw a clip on TV Burp, I think it was this. Will have a look on iPlayer.

Yes didn't he show the chair illusion or something?
It was a fascinating programme anyway, have a look at it.

Excellent programme even though it med me 'ed 'urt !

Horizon does some quality stuff definitely going to watch this later today. For anyone iterested I can highly recommend The Eye A Natural History by Simon Ings. and How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker. Mind blowing things about how we see and all that.

Yeah, really enjoyed this.

The mcgurk effect was very strange, even when knowing what you were hearing was different to what he visually said.

Just watching the "Is everything we know..." episode.
Very mind boggly, but interesting.

Quote: Steve Sunshine @ October 24 2010, 11:36 PM BST

Here's one of the other illusions
Where the Orange tile is the same colour as the brown one.

View original

Am I miSsing something here or was it different on TV?

Quote: Marc P @ October 10 2011, 12:50 AM BST

Am I miSsing something here

View original

The tile in the centre of the lower plane of the cube, in shadow, which appears to be orange, is in fact the same colour as the tile in the centre of the top plane, which appears to be brown. The two tiles are show on the right, to 'prove' this.

Quote: Marc P @ October 10 2011, 12:50 AM BST

Am I miSsing something here or was it different on TV?

View original

Are you colourblind? Not being rude - just asking.

Yeah, people don't realise how big a part the brain plays in the process of seeing things. Most people think the eyes do all the work, but that's not true. When you see a thing, the brain sends a lightning fast signal to you, telling you what it is that you are seeing.

Have you ever heard the story about the Aztecs not being able to see the Spanish ships, when they were approaching the coast of Mexico, ready to invade? Apparently they couldn't see them, because they had never seen ships before, which prevented their brains from telling them what they were.

Apparently you can also receive messages with your brain. Scientists have succeeded in sending messages to people whose hearing has been totally nullified. There's a lot of talk floating around the web about the power of the pineal gland as well, which is really interesting. If you look at ancient paintings and carvings, the pineal gland seemed to play a massive part in ancient life. Even now, the Pope often carries a staff that appears to have a pineal gland carved into it, and there's a huge sculpture of a pineal gland in the grounds of the Vatican.

I didn't see the Horizon episode, so I don't know whether they mentioned any of this.

Quote: catskillz @ October 10 2011, 4:24 PM BST

Have you ever heard the story about the Aztecs not being able to see the Spanish ships, when they were approaching the coast of Mexico, ready to invade? Apparently they couldn't see them, because they had never seen ships before, which prevented their brains from telling them what they were.

View original

Bollox.

Here's an article about this:

http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/science/20/questioning_perceptual_blindness.html

Yeah, they didn't see the ships as ships because the had no concept of ships to perceive them as such. They wouldn't have been able to see that the shapes of the ships were a positive against a background rather than a background hidden by edges of other colours. This was when the ships were far away, of course, with the people being observed through a telescope. I've heard that the people had also never seen horses before, and had never ridden any animals themselves, so they were totally freaked out by the sight of the conquistadors on horseback. It all comes down to the brain working like a pattern recognition machine.

Quote: catskillz @ October 11 2011, 3:46 PM BST

This was when the ships were far away, of course

View original

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vbd3E6tK2U