Aural Illusion

I'm guessing this is an example of top down processing (click that link to the left, it's a great explanation of TDP).

First, watch and listen to the video below.



Sounds sort of like "dada dada dada."

Now close your eyes and play it.

It switches to "baba baba baba." Not sure this works for everyone, but it did for me. My guess is seeing the hippie guy mouth the pronunciation of a "da" sound actually changes your perception of the sound. Close your eyes, and your hear the actual sound being made. The visual information is tricking your auditory perception. It's not an extraordinary example of top down processing, but it's pretty interesting.

(from Bad Astronomy)

Illusion Times!

Hoping this guy's good on his promise to show a cool new illusion each week. This is the contrast/motion illusion, also known as "lucy in the sky" (note: you do not need acid to see the illusion).

The title of his blog is awesome:

"Illusion Sciences: why are we surprised by only some of the things that we see?"

So cool - always hard to remember that everything in our consciousness is being drawn up and processed by our brains at every second of every day. But there are mistakes everywhere, and the more we see the holes, the better we'll see reality.