Links: The Eye Of The Beholder
- This article from the London Times spotlights Dr. Beau Lotto, a scientist/artist whose work examines the fallibility of human visual perception. Lotto argues that optical illusions, far from being hardwired into the brain, are frequently the result of prior experience. While the illusions are fun, I’m not sure the article (or maybe even Dr. Lotto) presents any convincing argument that these visual “shortcuts” are learned…the closest the piece comes is a linguistic analogy about “L” and “R” in some Asian languages. That’s useful for illustrating the idea of culture affecting perception, but does nothing to prove any visual examples. Dr. Lotto needs to find examples where members of certain cultures don’t fall for such illusions because they’d have no applicability in their environment–a task that might prove very difficult, if not impossible. I think there’s some evidence for his ideas, though, in cross-cultural studies of color perception and studies about the ways Easterners and Westerners approach images.
- One of the joys of the web is that it allows you to procrastinate by participating in valuable scientific experiments. Anthony Little’s lab is doing studies in facial attractiveness, and you can help by rating faces in your spare time. Only the first study works on my computer, but that could be because I’m using Firefox; Little recommends IE. Try it out here.
- The things you carry: Face your pockets! is a site that posts scans of people’s faces surrounded by the contents of their bags, pockets, or whatever. Anyone can participate. Submissions range from chaotic objects thrown around to carefully contrived compositions.
