Illusions Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This paper presents a systematic exposition of the general structure of visual constancies and illusions, including the introduction of a number of conceptual distinctions, illustrated by many examples. The study of these phenomena... more

This paper presents a systematic exposition of the general structure of visual constancies and illusions, including the introduction of a number of conceptual distinctions, illustrated by many examples. The study of these phenomena involves the distal, the proximal, and the phenomenal domain. The relations of concordance and discordance between pairs of domains are defined, followed by the definitions of four visual modes (concordant, proximal, constancy, illusion) as particular constellations of concordance-discordance relations between all three domains. Constancies and illusions are characterized by proximal-phenomenal discordance. Attributes of entities of visual domains are divided into the geometric (size, shape, location, orientation) and the photometric (reflectance, illumination) class. The phenomenal domain involves two types of attributes, one group distally and the other proximally focused. Research on both constancies and illusions can be described as involving the stud...

Present day cinemas’ pursuit of perfection in digital visual effects has resulted in a perceptual alienation of the audience due to missing collaboration between artist and audience in the creation of the illusion. The digital’s ability... more

Present day cinemas’ pursuit of perfection in digital visual effects has resulted in a perceptual alienation of the audience due to missing collaboration between artist and audience in the creation of the illusion. The digital’s ability to represent anything and everything, regardless of its perceived realism, reduces the viewer to a mere spectator and no longer an imaginative participant. The reintroduction of imperfect analog effects allows the viewer to contribute to the illusion rather than be pushed away by the perfectionist digital rendering that does not require
assistance. Both absence and imperfection are essential to selling the illusions of the cinematic landscape. This thesis project, the feature film Prairie Dog, is designed to address this digital disconnect in present day cinematic illusions by creating and experimenting in a variety of analog effects in combination with digital processing to illustrate the viability of analog incorporation in present day digital cinema.

Illusionary perceptions are what that human self spontaneously obtains without thinking and contemplating. It is well-known to philosophers and logicians that this kind of perception is the perception of the partial meanings related to... more

Illusionary perceptions are what that human self spontaneously obtains without thinking and contemplating. It is well-known to philosophers and logicians that this kind of perception is the perception of the partial meanings related to sensual things, and that, which is responsible for this, is the faculty of illusion.By this faculty, the human self has rulings on perceptible and imaginary things that are often true, such as the laws of ‎geometrics, but by such laws it might go beyond perceptible things to purely rational ones. So that it moves the ruling of perceptible material things to abstract reasonable ones. However, these laws are false and refuted by reason, and this is reflected negatively on the study of theology. This reflection has many applications, the most important of which is that which concerns the study of scriptural divine attributes (al-sifat al-ilahiyah al-khabariyah). Some scholars have taken them for their fixed traditional meanings of perceptible things and applied them to the Holy Divine Essence, relying on one of the illusionary rulings that are denied by reason. This is called the rule of comparing the imperceptible to the perceptible. In this article, I shed light on the problematics of this matter due to the rules of the rational approach that puts each tool or way of knowledge in its place that is compatible with itself constitutionally.

The déjà vu experience is a common phenomenon, occurring in pathological as well as nonpathological conditions. It has been defined as any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of a present experience with an undefined... more

The déjà vu experience is a common phenomenon, occurring in pathological as well as nonpathological conditions. It has been defined as any subjectively inappropriate impression of familiarity of a present experience with an undefined past. The authors discuss the epidemiologic data, clinical features, and etiology of the phenomenon of déjà vu. They also review the different hypotheses on the psychopathogenesis of the déjà vu experience and introduce an explanation based on the hologram as a mnestic model.

This paper offers a historical inquiry into industry worries about incredulous viewers, prompted by the persistence of claims by prominent contemporary film industry figures that computer-generated imagery (CGI) is intrinsically... more

This paper offers a historical inquiry into industry worries about incredulous viewers, prompted by the persistence of claims by prominent contemporary film industry figures that computer-generated imagery (CGI) is intrinsically detrimental to cinematic realism and is eroding viewer immersion in screen fiction. Examining a range of fan and trade magazines from the 1910s and 1920s, I find evidence of an earlier anxiety in the film industry about incredulous viewers. This anxiety, however, was blamed not on the intrinsic unreality of cinematic tricks but a broader film culture, including fake actuality films and journalistic revelations of filmmaking secrets. I show that the industry made a concerted effort to manage such viewership by cultivating uncertainty about the reality or artifice of what appeared on the screen. Finally, moving back to the present, I argue that CGI is not inherently less real. Rather, a broader viewing culture of incredulity has reemerged due to a combination of production publicity, cult viewing of bad cinema, online forums, editorial photoshopping, and image hoaxes.

Through a comparative analysis of themes and motives associating the love poetry of the “Serbian Bob Dylan” Bora Đorđević and the fiction of the French novelist Michel Houellebecq, with an emphasis on Đorđević’s collection of poetry Pusto... more

Through a comparative analysis of themes and motives associating the love poetry of the “Serbian Bob Dylan” Bora Đorđević and the fiction of the French novelist Michel Houellebecq, with an emphasis on Đorđević’s collection of poetry Pusto ostrvo (i.e. “Desert Island”, 2017) and Houellebecq’s novel La possibilité d’une île (engl. transl. The Possibility of an island, 2005), we aim at showing a number of similarities in their approach to the problem of frailty and pain of love. Both authors explore the causes of and the solution for the antagonism between egoism and need for love in a couple. From the theoretical point of view, our comparison hinges on three basic dichotomies : eros/ agape (D. de Rougemont, L’Amour et l’Occident, 1960 ; Engl. Trans. Love in the Western World, 1940), love-need/ love-gift (C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 1960) and I-Thou/ I-It (Martin Buber, Ich und Du, 1923 ; engl. transl. I and Thou, 1937). Confronting the many aspects of love offered by the poet and the novelist, we argue that they both consider ageing, selfishness and romantic illusion as the major impediments to a lasting love. Love’s labor is always lost when reduced to sexual intercourse, which “has all too short a date”, so that the rest of life turns into solitude and pain. Still, the crucial trigger of love misery is in us: the self-centered love or eros is a beggar who takes pleasure in its own desire, whereas sexuality is that fundamental and life-long instinct of transcending the limits of self by knowing the other and belonging to him/her. Considered in such a context, the motif of island represents a new Eden where love and joy of two blended individuals become possible.

... We hypothesize that the parchment-skin illusion reflects an omnipresent intersensory integration phenomenon, which helps the subject to make accurate tactile decisions about the roughness and stiffness of different textures they... more

... We hypothesize that the parchment-skin illusion reflects an omnipresent intersensory integration phenomenon, which helps the subject to make accurate tactile decisions about the roughness and stiffness of different textures they manipulate. ... Philip H. Howe ...

Howard Gruber, a founder member of Psychologists for Social Action, reviewed the dissertation. His review, dated May 7, 1978, as Parkovnick (2015) points out, "... is worth quoting in full, as it captures the very essence of the... more

Experiments in ship camouflage during World War I were necessitated by the inordinate success of German submarines (called “U-boats”) in destroying Allied ships. Because it is impossible to make a ship invisible at sea, Norman Wilkinson,... more

Experiments in ship camouflage during World War I were necessitated by the inordinate success of German submarines (called “U-boats”) in destroying Allied ships. Because it is impossible to make a ship invisible at sea, Norman Wilkinson, Everett L. Warner and other artists devised methods of course distortion in which high-contrast, unrelated shapes were painted on a ship's surface, thereby confusing the periscope view of the submarine gunner.

A review of: Capitalism: The Future of an Illusion, by Fred L. Block, Oakland, CA, University of California Press, 2018, viii + 252 pp., $29.92/£24.00 (paper)

Reviewing the book of a Nobel Laureate in Economics is no easy task. And if the particular laureate is a psychologist, it complicates matters further. Of course, it could just be a delusion, that someone of the stature of Daniel Kahneman... more

Reviewing the book of a Nobel Laureate in Economics is no easy task. And if the particular laureate is a psychologist, it complicates matters further. Of course, it could just be a delusion, that someone of the stature of Daniel Kahneman even needs to have his book reviewed. But that would be my System 1 talking, the one that is automatic, quick on the draw and happy to jump to conclusions. I can't really rely much on System 2 because according to Kahneman, it is reliable but lazy, preferring to surrender to the mighty System 1 as it's easier that way. In case you're wondering who these characters are, let me introduce you to Kahneman's two protagonists, who like any other protagonists are a reasonable mix of good and bad, flaws and perfection. Intuition, that hidden faculty which has received both empirical and mystical attention, is what this book is all about, rather about its biases. Kahneman aims to provide the appropriate vocabulary by which we can identify and understand errors of judgment and choice. What began as a work on intuitive statistics with Amos Tversky in 1969 led to almost 27 years of association studying biases, heuristics, errors and choices that affect our intuitive decisions. Along the way they managed to turn upside down a 300 year old theory of economics propounded by Bernoulli and other rational theories devised by Econs, the sub species of the human species that specialize in Economics. The Prospect Theory, their contribution to the field of human decision making is what essentially won Kahneman his Nobel in 2002. Tversky was unfortunately unable to share it due to his untimely death in 1996. This book is dedicated to Tversky and has numerous instances and episodes which both questioned established rational theories and offered proof of Humans with flawed decisions and judgments. In Kahneman's words this book describes, " the marvels as well as the flaws of intuitive thought. "