Visual illusion lab

Introduction

Optical illusions are a popular facet of cognitive science, especially since the Dress. These images are very fun, puzzling, and can even shift our philosophical understandings of the world. Amazingly, the Dress photo was basically an accident.

Illusions are also intentionally created by vision scientists to allow us to probe the principles and mechanisms underlying human vision. These probes can be so effective that the putative principles can be pointed out in the perceiver's immediate experience - and that's when we tend to call these images "illusions". This process is foundational to vision research, just as in auditory perception.

In this practical, you will create an illusion inspired by existing vision research and continue to build on the general scientific skills that you practiced in the auditory scene analysis lab. The format of the lab is the same as the auditory illusion lab.

You cannot use late days for this lab because there is a sharing component for the final portion.

Grey splotches that demonstrate the importance of top-down knowledge

Intended learning objectives

1. Identify perceptual principles underlying visual illusions
2. Design an image to test a scientific question about perception
3. Evaluate your subjective experience for evidence of perceptual mechanisms at work