Tsukuba COE symposium 2005

July 5, 2005
The 2nd symposium entitled "To know, record or explore 'kansei'"
COE, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

On motion illusion in a stationary image

Akiyoshi Kitaoka
Department of Psychology, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan; e-mail HP

since July 2, 2005

Here I classify anomalous motion illusions into nine classes and discuss them.

Type I

A smooth retinal slip generates anomalous motion illusion in the direction different from the retinal slip.

Ouchi illusion

The inset appears to move.

Ouchi H, 1977 Japanese optical and geometrical art (Mineola NY: Dover)

Spillmann L, Heitger F, Schuller S, 1986 "Apparent displacement and phase unlocking in checkerboard patterns" Paper presented at the 9th European Conference on Visual Perception, Bad Nauheim

Rotating Ouchi illusion

When observers look close or move away from the image keeping their eyes fixed on the center, the ring appears to rotate.

Kitaoka A and Murakami (in preparation) Rotating Ouchi illusion and its underlying mechanism.

Pinna-Brelstaff illusion

When observers look close or move away from the image keeping their eyes fixed on the center, the rings appear to rotate in the different directions.

Pinna B, Brelstaff G, 2000 "A new visual illusion of relative motion" Vision Research 40 2091-2096

Pinna-Brelstaff illusion (inset-surround version)

The inset appears to move.

produced July 2, 2005

Hine illusion

The inset appears to move.

Hine T J, Cook M, Rogers G T, 1995 "An illusion of relative motion dependent upon spatial frequency and orientation" Vision Research 35 3093-3102

Hine T J, Cook M, Rogers, G T, 1997 "The Ouchi illusion: An anomaly in the perception of rigid motion for limited spatial frequencies and angles" Perception & Psychophysics 59 448-455

Gurnsey illusion

When observers look close or move away from the image keeping their eyes fixed on the center, the rings appear to rotate in the different directions.

Gurnsey R, Sally S L, Potechin C, Mancini S, 2002 "Last but not least: Optimizing the Pinna-Brestaff illusion" Perception 31 1275-1280

When observers look close or move away from the image keeping their eyes fixed on the center, the rings appear to rotate in the different directions. The directions in apparent motion are different from each image. Are these OK?

"The autumn color swamp"

The inset appears to move.

Autumn color swamp's page

"Protective coloration"

The inset appears to move.

Illusion of Y-junctions (in Japanese)

"Cherries"

The inset appears to move.

"Rain"

The inset appears to move.

A remake of the work in 2000

"Momo no sekku 2"*

* The day (3rd March) for cerebration of the growth of young girls

Rows are parallel but appear to tilt clockwise (top, center, bottom) or counterclockwise (the rest two), which is the Zöllner illusion. Moreover, anomalous motion illusion is observed, too.

"Watashi"*

*Ferry boat

The inset appears to move in the horizontal direction.

"Makudonarudo"*

*Japanese pronunciation of McDonald's

Each row appears to move in the horizontal direction.

"Dango"*

*kind of food or cake

The inset appears to move.

"Candies"

A remake

Rings appear to rotate when observers look close or move apart from the image keeping the eyes fixed in the center.

"A tire"

The two concentric arrays of S-shaped figures appear to rotate in the different directions when we approach or move away from the figure while fixating at the center.*

*Such an idea, the looming method, was first presented by Pinna and Brelstaff (Vision Research, 40, 2091-2096, 2000)

"Frog"

Dots appear to move when the image slips vertically.

Type II

Anomalous motion illusion based upon visual delay

Ritsumeikan illusion

The blue letters (and the yellow letters actually) appear to move according to retinal slips.

Kitaoka, A. and Ashida, H. (2002) An anomalous motion illusion based upon signal delay. Perception, 31, Supplement, p. 162

Kitaoka A, Ashida H, in submission "An anomalous motion illusion based upon visual latency"

Type III

Anomalous motion illusion based upon apparent speed

"Out of focus"

The inset appears to fluctuate.

"Earthquake"

The center block and the flanking blocks appear to move relative to each other.

Type IV

Anomalous motion illusion based upon the fluctuation of chromatic abberation?

"Fluttering heart II"

The black heart appears to move.

Fluttering heart (Helmholtz)

"A black heart"

For more than half people, the black heart appears to be behind the brown surround. In addition, the heart appears to move a little.

"The end of the earth"

For more than half people, the red ring appears to be in front of the blue "earth". In addition, they appear to move.

Type V

I have never obtained hints to clarify the mechanism of this type.

"Staircase"

The inset appears to move.

"Trampoline"

The inset appears to move. This figure consists of squares.

"A moth"

Squares appear to move.

"Joro-gumo"*

*a kind of spider

The inset appears to move.

Type VI

I have never obtained hints to clarify the mechanism of this type.

"Heat shimmer"

Involuntary eye movements (?) generate the perception like a heat shimmer.

"The bottom of the sea #2"

The image appears to wave.

"Uribo"

"Uribo" refers to wild boar's child

Uribo appears to move to the right.

"Rice wave"

The image appears to wave.

Type VII

I have never obtained hints to clarify the mechanism of this type.

"Tomatos"

The inset appears to hop.

"UFO in mesh"

The inset appears to hop slightly.

Type IX

Central drift illusion

"Boats"

1024 x 768 pixels

Each ring of boats appears to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise.

"Clair du lune"*

*Moonlight

The center appears to shine and the whole image appears to expand.

Type VIII

Peripheral drift illusion

"Rotating snakes"

Circular snakes appear to rotate 'spontaneously'.

The page of "Rotating snakes"

The commercial use of this image is not free of charge. Modification of this image for commercial purpose is usually declined. Educational or research use or modification is welcome.

"U-zu"

(A remake)

Rings appear to rotate. This image was originally developed for the spiral illusion, in which the concentric gray lines appear to be a spiral. My nengajo

"Rollers"

Rollers appear to rotate.

「コンピュータワーム」

虫が動いて見える。

"Rotating rays"

The outer ring of rays appears to rotate clockwise while the inner one counterclockwise.

"Crystal balls"

Rings of crystal balls appear to rotate.

"Sausages"

The inset appears to move leftward.

"Rotating color eggs"

1024 x 768 pixels

Rings appear to rotate.

"Hanabi"

Hanabi appear to open.

Hanabi are fireworks.

"Maruboro"

Rings appear to rotate.

Maruboro are cookies for babies in Japan; not Marlboro.

I attended VSS2005.

Kitaoka, A. (2005) Is age related to the peripheral drift illusion? An instant study. Informal presentation in VSS2005, Sarasota, Florida, USA, May 10, 2005. PDF

A paper on the physiology of the peripheral drift illusion has been published in the Journal of Neuroscience! <June 10, 2005>

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/short/25/23/5651

Conway, R. B., Kitaoka, A., Yazdanbakhsh, A., Pack, C. C., and Livingstone, M. S. (2005) Neural basis for a powerful static motion illusion. Journal of Neuroscience, 25, 5651-5656.

A variant of Rotating snakes has decorated the cover!

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/vol25/issue23/cover.shtml

reversed phi

"Caterpillar"

Although the luminances in four regions only increase or decrease, the image appears to move rightward.

Macromedia Flash Player is necessary. For QuickTime version, click here.

Finally, a comment on KANSEI (sensitivity and sensibility as a human ability)

"No motion rotating snakes"

Artists might have given this a title like "Mute voices".

Thank you.

Akiyoshi's illusion pages