The Perfection & Deception of Perception June 3, 2008
Posted by Visionary in Life, Perception, Philosphy, belief, ethics, morality, politics, religion.Tags: belief, Life, Perception, Philosphy, politics, religion
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Human beings, whilst spiritual in nature require physical form to manifest in a material universe. The physical form imposes limitations on our abilities to interact with the universe. EG we don’t have wings so we cant fly, we have lungs not gills so we live on land not in water etc. Our physical forms were designed to promote survival in a once hostile environment. Our abilities and limitations have been shaped by the conditions in which we evolved. Perception is no exception.
Whilst the process of perception is perfectly designed for survival, the way it works causes some very surprising side effects. Ignorance of the side effects can cause us to become trapped inside a perceptual box. Since the trap is a creation of the process of perception, we can only break out if we are aware of the pitfalls of the process.
Before we go any further, for fun and to test your powers of observation lets do a little test. For this experiment to work, you need to follow the instructions as accurately as possible.
I am going to show you a short video clip of a bunch of college kids passing a couple of basketballs between themselves. The group is made up of 2 teams. One team is wearing white T-shirts and the other team is in black T-shirts. Each team is passing one of the basket balls to other memebers in their team. You must count as precisely as possible how many times the white team passes the ball. You need too concentrate very hard as they pass the balls quite quickly and dodge around a lot to try to confuse the count. Do not count any of the passes made by the black T-shirt team.
IMPORTANT – please only watch the video once and make sure you will not be interrupted while watching or it may spoil the effect of the experiment.
The link below will take you to a web page that contains a Java Applet. The applet will download the video, which is 6mb in size so it may take some time to download depending on your bandwidth and how busy the website is. Please let it download fully and then press the green play button to watch the video. After you have watched the video and counted the number of passes please return here for further instructions.
Please click here to watch the video clip now.
So here’s the question you’ve been waiting for, how many times did the white team pass their basket ball?
In actual fact this question was a red herring. What I’m really interested in is, did you notice anything unusual while watching the video? If so you are one of a very small minority and you may well struggle to believe what your about to read. If your one of the large majority who didn’t notice anything unusual prepare to be amazed.
To find out what I’m talking about click here and read on, then come back for more…
If you didn’t see something unusual but think this is a trick and don’t believe what you have just read, by all means, go back and watch the video again. If you’re very suspicious and don’t believe it’s the same video, then try it on someone else and watch the video over their shoulder with them. When they don’t see it either while your watching, you will know it’s genuine.
For the benefit of those who did see something unusual who may not believe that people could miss it, could everyone please answer the poll below truthfully. It’s anonymous and there’s no judgement attached to seeing or not seeing the anomaly. The sole purpose of this expeiment is to demonstrate the mechanics of the perceptual process.
While what you have just experienced may seem impossible, there is a very good reason for it and it is precisely because of the way our visual system is designed to work for our survival that causes strange side effects like this.
Here’s some more amazing examples of the tricks that our perceptual processes can play on us. I especially like the silhoutte illusion and the checkerboard shadow illusion.
When you’ve finished playing and if you still have time read here to discover why you didnt see the Gorilla and the implications this has for us as a species.
Love V
Hey SF you can still answer in the poll the more people see others feed back the more it will help.
Be honset now and admit you didn’t see a thing! It definately seems to have got you interested in monkeys since you saw this clip
Love V
No dear you have it ALL wrong it was in fact from talking to you!
Sure will participate in this poll thingie but you forget I did count a lot of balls
rofl – fighting talk
Very interesting… very CLEAR thought.
Fighting talk? All I say is that it takes one to know one
that is funny.
I absolutely did not see the person in the gorilla suite.
I was so focused on counting all the passes from the people in white
(the total was 14) that I put on mental blinders and ignored all figures that appeared dark. Actually I got so intently focused that I didn’t even pay attention to all the people in white either. When the video started I made a count of all balls ( two total – one for each group) so therefor, I only needed to keep my focus on one ball and had no need to set my attention on anything else.
Thinking back I do remember noticing an extra figure coming into the swarm of people, but through my blinders the figure was dark and thus was ignored…and again, I payed no attention to the people anyway, just kept my focus on that one ball.
This trick is THE one used by magicians.
@Amber – since starting work again I’m finding it harder to write so thanks for the comment
@SF We all need a sparring partner; shadow boxing is so dull
@ Christian – Some people feel like they let themselves down by not seeing the Gorilla but it’s nothing to do with how aware we are or not. It’s a function of the visual system that creates this effect. The visual system works in absolute perfection to ensure our survival but because of the perfection of its design for one set of circumstances it can be very deceptive in other circumstances. It is the knowledge of the visual systems function and limitation that magicians use. But its also advertising and many other disciplines which seek to affect our behaviour without our awareness. Knowledge of how our perceptive systems work can grant a higher level of awareness and make us less susceptible to outside manipulation.
The clue into how and why this works is that you did see something out of the corner of your eye but didn’t look, so it never came into your conscious awareness.
I notice with humour that even though I said that the number of times the ball was passed was irrelevant, you ‘had’ to let me know anyway. You aren’t alone here; I was exactly the same as were every one I have showed the video to. We become so fixated on the task we can’t let it go. Which is also linked to the reason this affect occurs.
I will explain why this affect happens as soon as I can get it down clearly and concisely. Sadly I’m struggling to present my thoughts clearly at the moment due to long working hours.
Love V
One day young sire I shall take you on with Wii boxing… I kick erm well the last time I had a slight accident of almost knocking out the person standing next to me ooops…
visionary,
The truth is, I am glad that I didn’t see the gorilla. It proved to myself that I have the ability to focus.
The deal with the gorilla was I did see it. Not in the shape of the gorilla, but as another dark figure. It did come into my conscious awareness, as an extra figure, but I chose to ignore it considering that it was trying to distract me from counting. If I’d have chosen to pay attention to the extra figure, I would have failed in my task to count all the passes.
I had to name off all the number of passes….getting dooped makes you feel a little stupid…LOL
As far as function of perception. I do agree with you on some points. But the notion of advertising being a perceptual tool I just can’t agree with.
I feel it as not a trick of the eye, but a trick of the mind.
Magic’s main goal is to trick the person into seeing something or not seeing something, that isn’t or is there, .
Advertising’s main goal is to trick the person into wanting something they don’t need.
The eye can see all the tricks and deceptions. It’s in the mind whether to accept or deny.
One major demon of this trickery is the automobile industry.
Regardless of speculation for subliminal messages in advertising, or marketing prestidigitation, it is in our decisions, not our perceptions, that give the advertising monsters their power.
Christian,
My reason for writing this post was to explain and demonstrate that there is no separate eye & mind function as most people believe. It is the complex integration of the mind and eye that creates the illusion of an integrated focused image of reality that we think we see when we look out on the world.
The experiment was meant to open peoples minds to the posibility that their eyes cannot see everything that is infront of them. This is scientific fact not speculation and is due to the physical design and function of the eye.
Whilst your eye did indeed detect the movement of the Gorilla as you would need it to do for survival in an hostile environment full of predators, it did not detect any of the detail of the Gorilla. This is not because your mind filtered it out, you really did not see the gorilla because you didnt look at it. Your eye was incapable of seeing the gorilla because you noticed its movement using your peripheral vision. To see the detail of the gorilla and recognise it conciously required you to look directly at the gorilla thus moving the image of the gorilla to a part of your retina called the fovea. Only the fovea is capable of rendering the detail of an image and providing this data to your visual cortex for processing and recognition. I tricked you by preventing from looking at the gorilla by giving you a focused task that meant you could not focus on the gorilla.
Basically, if you don’t look, you can’t see.
Being that there is no separate mind and eye function, but a complex system based on both, the distinction you draw between magic and advertising doesn’t hold up. Both are based on the knowledge of the practitioner that we think we are fully aware of everyhting infront of us whilst he knows we are not. There is a big diference in motive though. The magician is entertaining us by playing with our design weaknesses where as the advertising industry is exploiting our ignorance for their enrichment.
If we live in the awareness that there might be more that we cannot see, we will continue to question what we do see, where as if we believe we can see all there is to see we won’t.
I’ve already gone into more detail than I intended as this was the intended purpose of the second part of the post. I will explain as soon as I can.
Love V
[...] this one. Simple and yet very thought provoking indeed! Even more profound is Visionary’s Perfection Deception of Perception post (yip a mouthful), I dare you to go do the “test” and count how many balls are [...]
[...] June 14, 2008 Posted by Visionary in Uncategorized. trackback Please read the post “The Perfection & Deception of Perception” before you read this post for maximum impact and [...]
What is funny about this is I actually saw it the first time around…visual perception is based on how aware one is of their surroundings.
If you are told to do one thing it is easy to focus on that one thing but in order to stay on top of the game then you must be aware of everything.
Interesting how many people did not see it.
Damn. I got fooled!
Lol @ angryafrican
The point is that you didn’t get fooled. It’s a product of the visual system. If we know our limitations and accept them, we can try to work around them or at least build them into our plan.
Take care and enjoy your coffee break but don’t be gone too long, I have some stuff to discuss with you.
V