Cognitive neuroscientist Al Seckel explores how eye tricks can reveal the way the brain processes visual information -- or fails to do so. Among his other accomplishments: He co-created the Darwin Fish.
Why you should listen to him:
Al Seckel takes great delight in visual illusions and the brain mechanics that they reveal. A cognitive neuroscientist who until 2005 was at the California Institute of Technology, he is the author of many books and articles and has compiled several eye tricks calendars. Seckel has designed interactive museum exhibits around the world that allow visitors to play with illusions and understand how they work.
He is a noted lecturer, a member of the Edge Foundation, a founder of the Southern California Skeptics, a campaigner against the teaching of creationism in public schools -- and co-creator of the Darwin Fish. Since leaving Caltech in 2005 to pursue writing and his own research, he has continued his work in spatial imagery with psychology researchers at Harvard.
"Al Seckel is acknowledged as one of the world's leading authorities on illusions."Edge.org
Blog Posts on TED
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How easily we are fooled: The rotating grid illusion – September 21, 2008
Filmmaker and animator David O'Reilly (who came up with the concept for iHologram) has noticed an interesting property in this animated GIF:
He writes:
While working in 3D last year, I discovered this optical illusion: A large grid seen rotating at a certain speed will appear to group itself into smaller grids, spinning independently.
See O'Reilly's website for more examples (and his theory on why this happens). For more optical illusions, watch Al Seckel's TEDTalk on how easily we are fooled; or Dan Dennett's talk on our gullible minds. As Dennett says, we need to understand how easily we are fooled, in order to understand the nature of consciousness itself.
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Al Seckel on TED.com – April 20, 2007
Al Seckel, a cognitive neuroscientist, explores the perceptual illusions that fool our brains. Loads of eye tricks help him prove that not only are we easily fooled, we kind of like it.
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Which direction is this woman spinning? – October 13, 2008
Can you reverse her direction of rotation?
Cognitive Daily at ScienceBlogs took a reader poll and found that two-thirds saw the silhouetted woman rotating clockwise. About the same number were able to reverse her direction.
Those who initially saw the woman rotating counter-clockwise found it easier to reverse her direction -- much as the Necker cube's orientation can be reversed at will. How did you fare? (Check out more illusions in TEDTalks by Al Seckel and Dan Dennett.)
