
Illusion tricks you into thinking these celebrities are downright hideous - jamesbritt
http://io9.com/5911860/illusion-tricks-you-into-thinking-these-celebrities-are-downright-hideous
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DanBC
The other linked illusion - ([http://io9.com/5906432/an-optical-illusion-that-
explains-the...](http://io9.com/5906432/an-optical-illusion-that-explains-the-
origins-of-imaginary-monsters)) - is neat. It (The Troxler Effect) explains
why those of us who don't block ads tend not to even see them.

I use optical illusions as a gimmick when I talk to doctors. I do service user
involvement with mental health stuff. Clinicians talk about "accepting the
reality of the patient experience", but sometimes that concept is quite weak.
Showing someone an optical illusion (the grey grid and green bar[1] is great
for this) and asking them what colour they see - and then proving that they
are wrong - is powerful illustration of how strong the mind can be.

[1]
([http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Gre...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG/220px-
Grey_square_optical_illusion.PNG))

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georgemcbay
I saw this before but in the context of "average" faces instead of
celebrities.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM6lGNhPujE>

Both videos (with and without celebs) were pretty trippy.

Maybe it is just me but I don't really see the effect on Halle Berry, Kevin
Bacon or Hugh Laurie... they all seems to look pretty much the same to me with
or without the face flashing.

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droithomme
Thanks for that, I can see it there, they look like monsters. In the celebrity
one I didn't see it at all. The one you link to the faces seem to stay aligned
better and more consistent dimensions than with the celebrity version. That
may be why it worked better.

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erickhill
Perhaps this is how some caricature artist's eyes work.

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aw3c2
I don't visit gawker media sites, could someone post whatever they
copied/aggregated? I guess it is a youtube video?

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Karma_Police
well.

Youtube: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT9i99D_9gI>

Journal: <http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p6968>

Thompson: <http://mbthompson.com/research/>

Tangen: <http://www.psy.uq.edu.au/directory/index.html?id=1111>

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aw3c2
Thanks a lot!

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jmccaffrey
Those looks _weirdly_ similar to what caricaturists draw.

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jamesbritt
Many years ago I came across a simple graphics program that created
caricatures. Details are vague, but it involved plotting the key aspects of a
"normal" generic face on in some sort of grid-space, then plotting a more
typical (or "interesting" face).

The program then exaggerated the differences between the two. It was fairly
basic code, but remarkably effective.

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CodeCube
that's awesome, I'd love it if you found a link to that :-)

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jamesbritt
I have a feeling it's on a C=64 floppy in my closet :)

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jamesbritt
This is one _damn_ freaky optical illusion.

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opminion
And surprisingly unelaborate.

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sageikosa
If humans have hard-wiring for facial recognition, then likely a lag between
the processing of the facial system and the refresh of other optic-visual
processing nodes.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenface>

The rods in the eye responding more quickly than the cones is a more simple
example which you can see by quickly darting your eyes back and forth in a
darkened room while looking towards a red-LED clock.

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tferris
This is really weird—it even works when you cover one side with your hand.

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enr
did not believe you. NOW I'm freaked out.

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alister
Why does this effect happen on the computer but not in real life? That is,
when a friend (or celebrity) is approaching me in my peripheral vision, why
don't I see grotesque person for an instant?

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Terretta
Because usually your friend isn't having their face rapidly swapped out with
other faces causing your persistence of vision to perceive average blends.

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dchmiel
It would be interesting to get a caricaturists take on this if this is how
they see people before they draw them. Also, if they knew of this optical
illusion before it was published.

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tferris
How does this work?

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Peroni
Due to the fact that you are seeing the faces in your peripheral vision for a
brief moment, you don't have time to absorb all the detail of the face so your
brain fills in the gaps based on memory. Your brain takes shortcuts so the
results of 'filling in the gaps' are far from accurate.

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zerostar07
That's why you don't even need the second image for this effect. The effect
goes away if you focus on the actual image instead (using the mouse pointer as
reference point)

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petegrif
Wow. That is truly weird.

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andrewguenther
Really cool, but I don't really see its relevancy here on Hacker News...

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DanBC
nik61 (with a dead comment) is right.

I'll quote their post.

> _Paul Graham's indications for the content of Hacker News:_ > _What to
> Submit_ > _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That
> includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a
> sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual
> curiosity._ > _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports,
> unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of
> pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV
> news, it's probably off-topic._

This article is interesting, and it also contains a link to the original paper
which is more than many article do.

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damian2000
Creepy!

