Accurate perception is optional

October 19, 2018 5:14 PM

The 2018 Best Illusion of the Year Contest results are out, and unsurprisingly Kokichi Sugihara has won with a truly disorienting illusion. Sugihara previously.
posted by jjray (22 comments total)

That's like some Qbert level shit right there. Pretty cool.
posted by NoMich at 5:26 PM on October 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

These are awesome, thank you!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:35 PM on October 19, 2018

https://www.facebook.com/joy.denebeim/posts/1889730011114911

A very odd illusion because how fast it moves, which part of it moves, and whether looking at it directly matters vary a lot from one person to another.

Sorry, I don't have a non-facebook link for it.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:37 PM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

I find it oddly charming how most of these videos look like they were made with whatever video editing software came free with a PC in 1995.

Did the Sequin Illusion work for anyone? It didn't for me!
posted by moonmilk at 5:46 PM on October 19, 2018

Here's the facebook image at at BBC site.
posted by eye of newt at 5:46 PM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sequin Illusion didn't work for me either.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:53 PM on October 19, 2018

I really like the "Once Upon a Time" trick changing apparent motion by what you do with the background. It is *really* hard for me to visualize the actual path relative to the screen independent of the background. Even using my finger to try to track it.
posted by straight at 5:54 PM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

i cant even understand what im supposed to not understand
posted by Foci for Analysis at 6:02 PM on October 19, 2018 [13 favorites]

It must be my aphantasia, but I found the winner the least interesting. I can’t grasp what the big deal is. But all the others were super interesting. Except yeah, that sequin one didn’t really work for me.
posted by greermahoney at 6:05 PM on October 19, 2018 [2 favorites]

I'm frowning so hard right now but also I can't wait to get at the 3D printer on Monday so I can make other people frown a lot.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:06 PM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

I think I'm seeing what I'm supposed to be seeing with the sequin illusion, but it's definitely subtle.

I really like the fairy tale one.
posted by roll truck roll at 6:41 PM on October 19, 2018

eye of newt, thank you very much. How did you find it?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 7:03 PM on October 19, 2018

These are fun, and even make me more happy when I imagine how big a kick M.C. Escher would get out of them were he alive to see them.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 7:08 PM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

People who can think these things up must have a distorted vision to begin with. Or maybe they think in fractals?

I can sort of see the sequin illusion, but it's not very sequiny IMHO.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:19 PM on October 19, 2018

Ok I have An Opinion about illusions. I'm not so keen on the kind where the brain is actually interpreting the portrayed scene correctly. Like in the Once Upon a Time, or the Who's Chasing Whom illusions, or some of the Squish Squash illusions, or the checker shadow illusion, or just tromp l'oeils in general. They can be impressive from a crafstmanship point of view, or fun to try to force your brain to see it from a representational standpoint... but ultimately I kind of feel like they're not really illusions man yaknow. Like, with the Who's Chasing Whom one: yeah sure, when you reverse the direction of movement of background wrt the axis between two objects it looks like you've changed who is in front, because that's exactly how you're supposed to see who's in front?

Value judgment aside, they seem different to me than ones where the brain can't resolve a correct portrayed scene, like the spinning dancer illusion or the Just a Tree in Wintertime one.
posted by fleacircus at 7:55 PM on October 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

Sugihara is an international treasure. He deserves to have a wallet that says "Bad Mother Fucker," and then when you turn it 90 degrees it would be a picture of his face, and another turn would show something that crashes your brain.
posted by tclark at 8:10 PM on October 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

I got the sequin one working but it didn't happen immediately and wasn't nearly as strong as the others. It helped to blink a lot.
posted by solarion at 8:36 PM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

To me, an interesting illusion shows us something new or unexpected about how vision works. So, for example, "white + gray = red" is uninteresting- it's just a lateral inhibition thing, no biggie. Sugihara's illusions are fun on a visceral level but by now we know the trick (or family of tricks).

When I worked in a vision lab we worked on motion illusions and the assignment of attributes to flashed objects, so Squish Squash is extremely my jam. I'd be all about that.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:43 PM on October 19, 2018 [4 favorites]

I saw this one recently and spent a while bothered by how do they know where I'm looking to turn those dots on.

It's supposedly a variation on the Hermann Grid, which the Sequin Illusion was as well. I think the video presentation of the Sequin Illusion harms it. Like, to see the effect they were talking about, I had to pause it. And it's not as dramatic as the one I linked to.
posted by RobotHero at 9:25 PM on October 19, 2018 [1 favorite]

The squish illusion worked for me except in the case of the fence - I didn’t perceive any change in size with it.
posted by ShooBoo at 3:02 AM on October 20, 2018

I'm always a sucker for good illusions.

Given the research I do, this is not surprising.
posted by Making You Bored For Science at 7:42 AM on October 20, 2018

Love the squish squash illusion. Related to the (also great) flash grab illusion which has a demo here
posted by horopter at 11:05 AM on October 20, 2018 [1 favorite]