Hi everyone, Thanks for all your replies to my question. A friend of mine, who is a psych teacher, asked about the illusion. It was an assignment, I believe. I am guessing that students had to find find five illusions and explain them. The teacher sent me the girl's powerpoint. I tried to insert the picture into my e-mail, but I could not. Then as I was trying to save the image, I noticed it had a png extension, which tells me, she took a picture of this image and used it her powerpoint illusion. I changed the extension to jpg and then I could paste it in a word document. The thought of a virus never crossed my mind. Sorry I won't do that again. In her powerpoint, she said she had "problems" understanding this illusion. The teacher asked for a reference and, of course, this student did not do that part of the assignment.
I thought I could ask my colleagues, because maybe I was missing something. Thank you for your input. Jim retired FGCU Sent from my iPad > On Nov 8, 2015, at 11:19 AM, Mike Palij <m...@nyu.edu> wrote: > >> On Sat, 07 Nov 2015 16:40:36 -0800, Jim Matiya wrote: >> Has anyone on the list ever seen this illusion. > > Alas and alack, I had the same problem that Annette had, > that is, the digest form does not allow attachments. Fortunately, > this time, the Mail Archive did contain the Word document > that had the image. > > Can we all come to an agreement that attachments should not > be sent out with posts to Tips because (a) they don't appear > in the digest, (b) an attachment may appear on the > Mail Archive or it may not, and (c) the main reason most > mailing lists do not allow attachments is because this is > one of the easiest ways to spread computer viruses, either > intentionally or unintentionally. Is it really so difficult to > find a place on the web where images or text can be > accessed? > > So, how about it? > > To Jim: why did you call this picture an illusion? I mean, what > was its source? The simplest description of it is that it is a > minimalist representation of a meeting table from the view of > looking over the shoulder of the person at the head of the > table. It uses the simplest elements to represent the forms. > That being said, the question arises as to whether alternative > interpretations can be made of the forms. However, if the > forms used are relatively close to the prototypical representations > that people may have (i.e., how a long table looks from one end, > how well figures represent humans, and so on), there may be > severe limitations on the number of interpretations that are > possible (i.e., few "degrees of freedom"). > > One possible alternative interpretation of the image is that the > table is actually a Christmas tree and not a table but this interpretation > is violated by the central human figure and the human figures > along the sides. The "degrees of freedom" associated with this > image is quite limited unless there are key features that need > to be pointed out in order to see alternative images. This may > be best represented by the "my wife and my mother-in-law" aka > "young woman and old lady" illusion. For background on this > illusions see: > From the Wolfram website: > http://mathworld.wolfram.com/YoungGirl-OldWomanIllusion.html > From Wikipedia: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Wife_and_My_Mother-in-Law > From YouTube which has a video that shows which features > have to be altered to limit perception to the young woman or > old lady: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f1G6Nx5VDw > > So, I have to ask again: in what sense is your image an illusion > outside of it being a minimalist representation of things in the > real world? > >> A student submitted as a an example...but I have never seen >> it before. I am a little slow, can anyone see the figure-ground illusion? > > Why should you see a figure-ground illusion? How does this > image contain the elements that are typically found in such > illusions? To what extent is the illusion produced by processing > by the perceptual system and is immune to cognitive intervention > (the classic vase-two faces image seems to fall into this > category) and to what extent does it depend upon knowledge > of objects/forms that can be mapped onto a pictorial representation > and compete for being the "key" interpretation of the image > (the young woman-old lady image seems to fall into this category; > speaking for myself, it took years for me to see the young woman > because the old lady interpretation was so compelling -- it > took an analysis of the features that contribute to the perception > of the young woman to allow me to switch between the two > interpretations)? > >> I have attached the picture > > Attachments are bad, m'kay? > > -Mike Palij > New York University > m...@nyu.edu > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: jmat...@hotmail.com. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13283.28aec02f231f4c4baa9a4a58ae139710&n=T&l=tips&o=47309 > or send a blank email to > leave-47309-13283.28aec02f231f4c4baa9a4a58ae139...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=47310 or send a blank email to leave-47310-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
