Comments for "Extraordinary brain tricks" Video at VideoSift.com

By FishBulb

FishBulb (http://www.videosift.com/member/FishBulb) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 03:43:30 -0700

The green/purple dot thing was insane. I had to watch it twice to make sure the dots disappearing and the colour change to green wasn't actually in the animation.

An idea that just struck me. The information contained in the aforementioned sequence is simply a finite amount of dots of one colour while one dot changes to the same colour as the background at a time, (essentially zero). The information of the dot changing colour to green and the others disappearing is decoded by the human brain. Could these kind of tricks ever be used as a form of information compression?

By pragmatick

pragmatick (http://www.videosift.com/member/pragmatick) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:41:52 -0700

Not so impressive as those are the absolute standard illusions you can find on thousands of sites across the internet.

By lucky760

lucky760 (http://lucky760.videosift.com) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:15:30 -0700

Taht fsrit bit aoubt the ocpiatl ssnee's aiiltby to ujnbmule mexid up lrttees is the olny prat of tihs veido taht was ralley issvirpeme and nwes to me. Tlury fnniiaacstg. Uvopte for taht bit.

By antonye

antonye (http://www.videosift.com/member/antonye) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:16:57 -0700

lol @ Lucky

By arnor

arnor (http://twisted.videosift.com) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:56:15 -0700

Meh. I've seen all of these before... The last one I even saw (on the intertubes) back in the late 90s...

By joedirt

joedirt (http://www.videosift.com/member/joedirt) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:08:36 -0700

thr r stdies abot wht is neccsry to read wrds wth no vwls or scrmbled ordr. It is intrsting. yuo cna raed ni contxet fi ordred jst rght.

By spoco2

spoco2 (http://www.videosift.com/member/spoco2) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 17:02:45 -0700

Seen them all before, many times, but still an upvote as I do love an optical illusion... although the text was terrible, someone loves their exclamation marks a little too much!! !!!!

But I do like Enigma, so upvote for the music

By thesnipe

thesnipe (http://thesnipe.videosift.com) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 18:50:25 -0700

Uovtpe bucasee it was rlleay cool to see tehm icudlne a vtioaairn of oactipl iuslolins.

By dag

dag (http://dag.videosift.com) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:53:30 -0700

I've seen Jesus. uh-oh subtle christian mind control- alert the Sifthiest guard!

By bamdrew

bamdrew (http://www.videosift.com/member/bamdrew) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:50:12 -0700

behold, the phenomenal power of... reading... and optical illusions... (yawn)

By jonny

jonny (http://www.videosift.com/member/jonny) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 00:08:27 -0700

Ironic - with the exception of the initial demonstration of top-down processing in text comprehension, none of those have much to do with the human 'mind'. They are mostly functions of subcortical structures, primarily the retina, and some processing in the lateral geniculate nucleus (part of the thalamus). [edit] Motion detection is definitely associated with area V5 of the occipital cortex, but the data has been heavily processed by that point. The neurons in V5 are almost certainly activated by the motion illusions, but the illusion itself is caused by the wiring of the retina and LGN.

As for the text demonstration, it's worth noting that your ability to read text like that is severely hampered, though not completely degraded. This has be shown by reaction time studies of all sorts. There are even neural network models that have been developed to demonstrate exactly that effect. Still pretty neat, though.

You want fascinating - try figuring out how your brain matches up the color of those dots with the shape of them, despite the fact that the information travels in two completely separate neural pathways. It's a low-level variation of the 'binding problem' and is one of the central issues in cognitive neuroscience. Figure that out and you should pack your bags for a trip to Stockholm.

By deathcow

deathcow (http://www.videosift.com/member/deathcow) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:15:23 -0700

paralell or straight? ummmmm trick question?

By deathcow

deathcow (http://www.videosift.com/member/deathcow) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:17:08 -0700

cooler than all of them
http://www.videosift.com/video/Castle-Color-Illusion

By direpickle

direpickle (http://www.videosift.com/member/direpickle) — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:20:46 -0700

I really hate the jumbled word thing. Yes, it is legible, but it does take extra work. This of course doesn't really matter, but a lot of people use it as an excuse for why spelling is irrelevant.