Deceiving the brain: pictures and visual perception

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

    4 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Pictures deceive the brain: they provide distillations of objects or ideas into simpler shapes. They create the impression of representing that which cannot be presented. Even at the level of the photograph, the links between pictorial images (the contents of pictures) and objects are tenuous. The dimensions of depth and motion are missing from a pictorial image, and this alone introduces all manner of potential ambiguities. The history of art can be considered as exploring the missing link between image and object. Pictorial images can be spatialized or stylized; spatialized images (like photographs) generally share some of the projective characteristics of the object represented. Written words are also images but they do not resemble the objects they represent--they are stylized or conventional. Pictures can also be illusions--deceptions of vision so that what is seen does not necessarily correspond to what is physically presented. Most of visual science is now concerned with pictorial images--two-dimensional displays on computer monitors. Is vision now the science of deception?
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationThe fine arts, neurology, and neuroscience
    Subtitle of host publicationnew discoveries and changing landscapes
    EditorsStanley Finger, Dahlia W. Zaidel, François Boller, Julien Bogousslavsky
    Place of PublicationAmsterdam
    PublisherElsevier
    Pages115-134
    Number of pages20
    ISBN (Print)9780444632876
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2013

    Publication series

    NameProgress in brain research
    PublisherElsevier
    Volume204
    ISSN (Print)0079-6123

    Keywords

    • Brain
    • Humans
    • Optical Illusions
    • Visual Perception

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