Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

The Coffer Illusion

#1
Yazata Offline
There are sixteen circles in this image! Can you perceive them?

I have to admit it stumped me. Everything looked totally rectilinear. I couldn't see circles until I saw a reveal of the illusion. (In the link below.) Then the circles were obvious and now I can't not see them!

(It helps to let your eyes go out of focus a little...)


[Image: coffer-illusion-plain-1.jpg?fm=jpg&fl=pr...q=50&w=900]
[Image: coffer-illusion-plain-1.jpg?fm=jpg&fl=pr...q=50&w=900]



Here's the big reveal:

https://images.ctfassets.net/f60q1anpxzi...q=50&w=900

It seems that the brain's visual cortex has what might be called feature-detectors that pick features out of the visual data and try to piece together some recognition of what's being seen. In this illusion, apparently the line and corner detectors totally swamp and drown out the curve and circle detectors.

This illustrates part of my own theory about what the visual "patterns" that one sees on psychedelic drugs like LSD are. Feature-detectors are being triggered off randomly and the whole visual field becomes a seething mass of corners, curves and edges, without these features coming together into coherent objects.

I used to like how when I looked at a blank surface, it sometimes appeared like the surface was completely covered with unintelligible writing in some unknown alphabet of glowing letters of flame. Everything I looked at was covered with incomprehensible words whose meaning seemed vitally important somehow!

Forget the Bible, this was the real deal! I was experiencing it! I felt that if I could somehow read that transcendental/divine script, it would reveal the secrets of the universe to me!

(Sadly, it never happened.)
Reply
#2
Magical Realist Online
Quote:Feature-detectors are being triggered off randomly and the whole visual field becomes a seething mass of corners, curves and edges, without these features coming together into coherent objects.

When I was taking diet pills I had this same experience of a translucent jelly-like mass of edges and corners and squares floating in my field of vision. It was as if I was seeing a geometrical substrate that was overstimulated by the drugs.

Now when I gaze at empty space in the dark a red glowing curtain or membrane with black specks appears and moves closer to me. After about 15 seconds it fades away, only to return in about 15 seconds. Back and forth, undulating in the breeze. I wonder if it is the astral veil between worlds that practicioners of the occult report seeing in vision.
Reply
#3
Secular Sanity Offline
(May 24, 2023 06:54 PM)Yazata Wrote: There are sixteen circles in this image! Can you perceive them?

I have to admit it stumped me. Everything looked totally rectilinear. I couldn't see circles until I saw a reveal of the illusion. (In the link below.) Then the circles were obvious and now I can't not see them!

(It helps to let your eyes go out of focus a little...)

When you said to let your eyes go out of focus, it was obvious. A more difficult one is in this link below. There's a number within the picture. In order to see it, you have to cross your eyes and then let them relax back into focus. You should see the number when, not completely focused, but somewhere in between.


https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/si...all&w=1535
Reply
#4
Syne Offline
(May 25, 2023 08:59 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: When you said to let your eyes go out of focus, it was obvious. A more difficult one is in this link below. There's a number within the picture. In order to see it, you have to cross your eyes and then let them relax back into focus. You should see the number when, not completely focused, but somewhere in between.


https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/si...all&w=1535

I got nothing. Wink
Reply
#5
Secular Sanity Offline
(May 25, 2023 11:10 PM)Syne Wrote: I got nothing.  Wink

Big Grin
Reply
#6
Yazata Offline
Hi, SS! Haven't seen you in a while. Glad you are still around.

I got nothing too... Huh
Reply
#7
C C Offline
(May 26, 2023 04:20 AM)Yazata Wrote: Hi, SS! Haven't seen you in a while. Glad you are still around.

I got nothing too... Huh

I suffer from "Pitt's perceptual perplexity", too. Motion reveals the shark in this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereogram

SEINFELD: "The Gymnast" episode (short clip)
https://youtu.be/Uy9D0lO_0y0

Mr. Pitt gets distracted by an autostereogram

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Uy9D0lO_0y0
Reply
#8
Secular Sanity Offline
(May 26, 2023 04:20 AM)Yazata Wrote: Hi, SS! Haven't seen you in a while. Glad you are still around.

I got nothing too... Huh

I’ve always thought of Syne as one of Carl Sagan’s flatlanders, but this was a good display of multi-dimensional wit.

He got it. It was a zero.  Big Grin

There are a few tips on how to view them in this link.  

https://www.vision-and-eye-health.com/au...grams.html

(May 26, 2023 06:00 AM)C C Wrote: SEINFELD: "The Gymnast" episode (short clip)
https://youtu.be/Uy9D0lO_0y0

I must have missed that one. It's hilarious!
Reply
#9
Syne Offline
My only problem with autostereograms is that I always see them as inverted...a 3D concave in the flat image.
Reply
#10
DaveC426913 Offline
(May 26, 2023 04:36 PM)Syne Wrote: My only problem with autostereograms is that I always see them as inverted...a 3D concave in the flat image.

There are two types of stereograms - and two ways of viewing them.

To see some, you need to relax your eyes, so their line-of-light is parallel (i.e. as if you're looking at the horizon).
To see others, you need to cross your eyes.
You may be mixing them up.

A third possibility is that you are over-doing it - your eyes are too relaxed and your eyes are focusing on the wrong pattern.



Also: (hey scifo members! You can run but you can't hide!)
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Article New visual deception: The bumpy circle illusion C C 0 13 Mar 13, 2024 03:12 PM
Last Post: C C
  Time and the brain: the illusion of now C C 1 95 Dec 3, 2023 08:17 PM
Last Post: Magical Realist
  Remarkable ways brains slip into synchrony + Visual illusion & consciousness C C 2 300 Dec 25, 2020 03:50 PM
Last Post: confused2
  'Time-travel illusion' tricks brain into seeing something that isn't really there C C 0 256 Oct 10, 2018 02:47 AM
Last Post: C C
  Self-proclaimed experts more vulnerable to the illusion of knowledge C C 0 488 Jul 20, 2015 06:00 PM
Last Post: C C
  Introspection illusion Magical Realist 2 1,304 Oct 28, 2014 01:16 AM
Last Post: Yazata
  The Grand Illusion C C 0 654 Oct 26, 2014 05:19 PM
Last Post: C C



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)