Re: CHAT: Ultraviolet (was: Orange)

Andy Canivet sikyal:

> >Well, I do have a sight good enough to become a fighter pilot (though I
> >abandoned that path after 1 week in military school), but I do have
> >difficulties seeing those "secret pictures". In fact, when I see them, they
> >appear inversed to me (what should be in front appears back, and
> >vice-versa). I
> >don't know where it comes from...
> >
>
> I think those things are pretty tricky to see even if you have your
> stereoscopic cells - and you would have to have them if you see anything
> other than a flat page.  The reversal could be a perceptual disembedding
> thing - kind of like the "Necker cube" illusion (the transparent cube that
> looks popped in or popped out) or the Vase-face  illusion (a vase, or two
> faces looking at each other)... at first you see one picture, then you
> notice the details of another picture and see it instead, but never both at
> the same time.  The picture you see first is just a matter of luck I think.
>
> I suspect if you looked at a magic eye long enough, you'd see the other
> side.  Next time you see one, try to focus your attention on the negative
> space instead of the image, and don't to keep yourself from trying to
> evaluate what the picture actually is, and it may help to shift your
> perception.
This will not work.  As somebody else said, the depth orientation that you
see depends on whether your eyes are focused on a point in front of the
image or behind the image--there's nothing psychological about it.  Most
are designed to be seen by focusing on a point behind the image, and if
you look at them the other way you'll see the 3D features reversed.


Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu
http://students.washington.edu/jaspax/

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are
perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in
frightful danger of seeing it for the first time."
--G.K. Chesterton