Headspace Discovery

[bcholmes]

There's a famous optical illusion. Young woman, or old hag.

When I look at a picture, I know how to manipulate my eye muscles so that the picture is blurry. I know how to manipulate my eye muscles so that I see double. As far as I know, that's a completely physiological response. It involves my eye.

I also know how to shift my perception so that I see an old hag. Now, I see a young woman. Now the hag. What is it that I'm changing? A perception muscle? A filter for pattern recognition? And is my experience of moving easily from one way of looking to another idiosyncratic? Do some people just simply perceive both at the same time?

And, more interestingly, do people generally think of there being a way of perceiving that can be changed? My sense is that most people think that they just see.

Comments

[deepforestowl.livejournal.com]

perception is maleable, kind of like clay I think. I see a young woman and have problems seeing the old hag, but that doesnt mean she doesnt exist....

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

AS an experiment, and thinking ahead as I read, I let my eyes defocus and split the image, and then looked - I could shift perception from young to old, but both eyes got it. I was really trying to see left/right brain perceptual differences, but apparently for me the perception bit as post-zisual processing. (actually, if I try really hard I can briefly split the two so I get young/old but it takes a lot of work and doesn't last. )

Another datapoint - when I was looking for cars, I would start perceiving all the ones of the model I wanted - and suddenly they were all over. As they'd always been, I just hadn't seen what I saw.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I can force myself to just see one aspect of an optical illusion, but usually I see all the possibilities at once. It's an aspect of visual processing. If you're interested in reading more about that sort of thing, you might try Oliver Sacks' writing on people who have had their vision restored after blindness.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

If you're interested in reading more about that sort of thing, you might try Oliver Sacks' writing on people who have had their vision restored after blindness.

Thanks for the pointer. I'll look for that.