Visuals

Thursday, April 18, 2024

Yesterday was weird. I was thinking about air space and visibility. While driving home around 4 p.m., I couldn’t see a cloud in the sky. Suddenly, I noticed overhead a partial globe, maybe the moon? It was alone, just hanging. After several seconds of doubting reality and double-taking, I understood that it was most of the moon, just floating, naked.

I wondered why the moon sighting had been confusing and why visual perceptions sometimes cause doubts. A little research explained that our brains don’t receive perfectly detailed pictures from our eyes. Instead, they absorb sight data and fill in blanks with what’s known from past experiences and expectations. The “filling-in” can lead to misinterpretations, like my doubting that overhead and so early, I was seeing the moon.

Filling in may be especially confusing when sightings are unfamiliar or in low-light conditions. How things are arranged or lit affects how we perceive their sizes, shapes, and colors. Our brains are generally very good at interpreting the visual world. Still, overconfidence can add to confusion. Our human sighting limitations remind us to be aware of and critical of what we see. Understanding has a reward of less wondering if what we see is an illusion or misinterpretation.

Take this a step forward and consider magicians. Their hands move very quickly, not directly fooling our eyes, but fooling our brain’s perceptions of what our eyes are seeing. They create illusions by exploiting the loopholes in how humans process visual information.

Dear Friends: Now, quitting, on seeing that illusion-related topics are unending. Diana