Illusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion

Illusion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people.[1] Illusions may occur with more of the human senses than vision, but visual illusions, optical illusions, are the most well known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words.[2] Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles, like Gestalt, an individual's ability of depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur because of biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside of the body within ones physical environment. The term illusion refers to a specic form of sensory distortion. Unlike a hallucination, which is a distortion in the absence of a stimulus, an illusion describes a misinterpretation of a true sensation. For example, hearing voices regardless of the environment would be a hallucination, whereas hearing voices in the sound of running water (or other auditory source) would be an illusion. Mimes are known for a repertoire of illusions that are created by physical means. The mime artist creates an illusion of acting upon or being acted upon by an unseen object. These illusions exploit the audience's assumptions about the physical world. Well known examples include "walls", "climbing stairs", "leaning", "descending ladders", "pulling and pushing" etc.

Contents
1 Optical illusions 2 Auditory illusions 3 Tactile illusions 4 Other senses 5 Disorders 6 Philosophy and Illusion 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

Optical illusions

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Illusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion

Main article: Optical illusion An optical illusion is always characterized by visually perceived images that, at least in common sense terms, are deceptive or misleading. Therefore, the information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain to give, on the face of it, a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. A conventional assumption is that there are physiological illusions that occur naturally and cognitive illusions that can be demonstrated by specic visual tricks that say something more basic about how human perceptual systems work. An optical illusion. Square A is exactly the same shade of grey as Square B. See Same The human brain constructs a world inside our head color illusion based on what it samples from the surrounding environment. However sometimes it tries to organise this information it thinks best while other times it lls in the gaps.[3] This way in which our brain works is the basis of an illusion.

Auditory illusions
Main article: Auditory illusion An auditory illusion is an illusion of hearing, the sound equivalent of an optical illusion: the listener hears either sounds which are not present in the stimulus, or "impossible" sounds. In short, audio illusions highlight areas where the human ear and brain, as organic, makeshift tools, differ from perfect audio receptors (for better or for worse). One of example of an auditory illusions is a Shepard tone.

Tactile illusions
Main article: Touch illusion Examples of tactile illusions include phantom limb, the thermal grill illusion, the cutaneous rabbit illusion and a curious illusion that occurs when the crossed index and middle ngers are run along the bridge of the nose with one nger on each side, resulting in the perception of two separate noses. Interestingly, the brain areas activated during illusory tactile perception are similar to those activated during actual tactile stimulation.[4] Tactile illusions can also be elicited through haptic technology.[5] These "illusory" tactile objects can be used to create "virtual objects".[6]

Other senses
Illusions can occur with the other senses including that of taste and smell. It was discovered that even if some portion of the taste receptor on the tongue became damaged that illusory taste could be produced by tactile stimulation.[7] Evidence of olfactory (smell) illusions occurred when positive or negative verbal labels were given prior to olfactory stimulation.[8]

Disorders
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Illusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion

Some illusions occur as result of an illness or a disorder. While these types of illusions are not shared with everyone they are typical of each condition. For example migraine suffers often report Fortication illusions.

Philosophy and Illusion

Just like many other words often used in a different sense in spirituality the word "illusion" is used to denote different aspects in Hindu Philosphy (Maya). Many Monist philosophies clearly demarcate illusion from truth and falsehood. As per Hindu advaita philosophy, Illusion is something which is not true and not false. Whereas in general usage it is common to assume that illusion is false Hindu philosophy makes a distinction between Maya (illusion) and falsehood. In terms of this philosophy maya is true in itself but it is not true in comparison with the truth. As per this philosophy, illusion is not the opposite of truth or reality. Based on these assumptions Vedas declare that the world as humans normally see is illusion (Maya). It does not mean world is not real. The world is only so much real as the image of a person in a mirror. The world is not real/true when compared to the reality. But the world is also not false. Falsehood is something which does not exist. if we apply this philosophy to the above example, the illusion is not actually illusion but is false. This is because in general usage people tend to consider lllusion is same as falsehood. As per adishankar's a guru of monist teachings the world we think is true is not true but is an illusion (not true not false). The truth of the world is something which can only be experienced by removing the identity (ego).

See also
Argument from illusion Augmented reality for a more radical approach to the possibility of illusion Delusion Dream argument Illusion costume Simulated reality

References
1. ^ Solso, R. L. (2001). Cognitive psychology (6th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. ISBN 0-205-30937-2 2. ^ McGurk,Hj. & MacDonald, J.(1976). "Hearing lips and seeing voices", Nature 264, 746-748. 3. ^ Yoon Mo Jung and Jackie (Jianhong) Shen (2008), J. Visual Comm. Image Representation, 19(1):42-55, First-order modeling and stability analysis of illusory contours (http://portal.acm.org /citation.cfm?id=1326364.1326487&coll=&dl=&CFID=11849883&CFTOKEN=72040242) . 4. ^ Gross, L 2006 THIS REFERENCE IS INCOMPLETE 5. ^ Robles-De-La-Torre & Hayward 2001 (http://www.roblesdelatorre.com/gabriel/GR-VHNature2001.pdf) 6. ^ The Cutting Edge of Haptics (http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17363& ch=biotech&sc=&pg=1) (MIT Technology Review article) 7. ^ Todrank, J & Bartoshuk, L.M., 1991 8. ^ Herz R. S. & Von Clef J., 2001

External links
Universal Veiling Techniques (http://www.virtuescience.com/universalveiling.html) Best Rotating Illusions Video (http://www.metacafe.com/watch/838119 /best_rotating_pictures_illusion/) Make own Illusion video (http://www.metacafe.com/watch/985327

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Illusion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion

/you_will_not_believe_make_your_own_illusion_in_few_sec_o/) Illusion Database (http://www.visualfunhouse.com) Daily Illusions What is an Illusion? (http://www.sandlotscience.com/EyeonIllusions/whatisanillusion.htm) by J.R. Block. Optical illusions and visual phenomena (http://www.michaelbach.de/ot) by Michael Bach Auditory illusions (http://www.brl.ntt.co.jp/IllusionForum/basics/auditory/index-e.html) Haptic Perception of Shape (http://www.roblesdelatorre.com/gabriel/haptics.htm) - touch illusions, forces and the geometry of objects, by Gabriel Robles-De-La-Torre. Illusions of taste (http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2006/05/illusions_of_taste.html) Get High Now (http://gethighnow.com/) (a science site with audio and visual illusions) Illusion Mini Keelboat Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion" Categories: Illusions | Reality | Perception This page was last modied on 22 November 2009 at 13:29. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-prot organization. Contact us

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