Illusion news 5

since January 10, 2007


Akiyoshi Kitaoka received the Award called "Dokuso-sho" (Prize for originality) from the Japanese Society of Cognitive Psychology, on 27th May. <May 29, 2007>

Memorial talk "Cognitive psychology of visual illusions" (in Japanese)


The 2007 Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest Gala was a huge success, with OVER 600 ATTENDEES!

The TOP THREE winners of the 2007 Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest are:

3rd prize: Arthur Shapiro and Emily Knight (Bucknell University, USA) -- "Where has all the motion gone?"
2nd prize: Pietro Guardini and Luciano Gamberini (University of Padova, Italy) -- "The illusory contoured tilting Pyramid"

1st PRIZE: Frederick Kingdom, Ali Yoonessi and Elena Gheorghiu (McGill University, Canada) -- "The Leaning Tower Illusion"


Check out the WINNING ILLUSIONS, and all TOP TEN finalists at: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

RESULTS OF THE 2007 CONTEST GALA SURVEY:

74% of the audience rated the Contest Gala as VERY GOOD or EXCELLENT.
98% VSS members said that the Contest should be hosted again next year during VSS.
93% of the audience plans to come back next year!

If you took PICTURES or VIDEOS of the event, please send them to us and we will post the best ones!!

On behalf of the Neural Correlate Society,

Susana Martinez-Conde (Executive Director and Illusion Contest Coordinator)

Neural Correlate Society Executive Committee: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse
The Neural Correlate Society is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit organization, whose mission is to promote the public awareness of vision research.

<May 19, 2007>

Stimulated by the work of the first prize "The Leaning Tower Illusion", I tried to produce a similar illusion design, with failure as shown below. No larger tilt in the left girl! I misundersood that the illusion is one of the classic angle expansion illusions.


Illusion work with weak illusion
Copyright Akiyoshi .Kitaoka 2007 (May 19)


Then, I imagined a simple image may be better. But the result was negative, as shown below. No larger tilt in the left trapezoid. Therefore, the Leaning Tower illusion is NOT one of the classic angle expansion illusions.


Little or no illusion


It seems that the Leaning Tower illusion need curved line segments, as shown below. The left object appears to tilt more than the right.


Good.


Journal of Vision has announced that Ben's paper about "Rotating snakes" is ranked in the TOP TEN papers (now the 6th) that have been downloaded per day! He is eager to get the first position soon. To help him, download the paper now. <May 10, 2007>

Journal of Vision Volume 5, Number 11, Article 10, Pages 1055-1069

Illusory motion from change over time in the response to contrast and luminance
Benjamin T. Backus
Ipek Oruc
http://journalofvision.org/5/11/10/

Please remember the related papers of us shown below, too!

Murakami, I., Kitaoka, A. and Ashida, H. (2006) A positive correlation between fixation instability and the strength of illusory motion in a static display. Vision Research, 46, 2421-2431. PDF request should be sent to Dr. Murakami    

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. PDF request should be sent to Dr. Conway    

Memorial Talk of the Gold Prize of the 9th L'ORÉAL Art and Science of Color Prize (2006)

(VSS DemoNight 2007)


The Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest is happy to announce that the TOP TEN illusions have been chosen!! (I worked as a judge)

The Contest Gala will be on Saturday, May 12th, 7pm, in the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall (Sarasota Fl), during the week of VSS. Free Hors d’oeuvres will be served at 6.30pm. The Contest is not in the VSS program, but it doesn’t overlap with any of the VSS activities.

The 2007 Contest Gala will be hosted by Denis Pelli! Everybody is invited!!!

Who will the TOP THREE winners be??? That's up to YOU! The audience will choose them from the current TOP TEN list.

For more details, please visit our webpage: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

2007 TOP TEN ILLUSION CONTESTANTS (alphabetical order): To see the illusions themselves… you must come to the CONTEST!!!


“The illusory contoured tilting Pyramid”, by Pietro Guardini and Luciano Gamberini (University of Padova, Italy)
“Bouncing Brains” illusion, by Thorsten Hansen, Kai Hamburger and Karl Gegenfurtner (University of Giessen, Germany)
"’Weaves’ and the Hermann Grid", by Kai Hamburger and Arthur Shapiro (University of Giessen, Germany, and Bucknell University, USA)
“Drifting background illusion”, by Masaharu Kato (Uppsala University, Sweden)
“The Leaning Tower Illusion”, by Frederick Kingdom (McGill University, Canada)
"Swimmers, Eels and other Gradient-Gradient Illusions", by Emily Knight and Arthur Shapiro (Bucknell University, USA)
“Steel Magnolias and Breeze in the Trees Illusions”, by Michael Pickard (Sunderland University, UK)
“Where has all the motion gone?”, by Arthur Shapiro and Emily Knight (Bucknell University, USA)
“Kaleidoscopic motion and velocity illusions” by Peter van der Helm (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
“It’s a circle, honest!”, by David Whitaker (University of Bradford, UK)


On behalf of the Neural Correlate Society,

Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Coordinator)
Neural Correlate Society Executive Committee: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse
The Neural Correlate Society is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 non-profit organization, whose mission is to promote the public awareness of vision research

<May 6, 2007>


Vision researchers can get visual images or information free of charge from Visiome Platform we have been creating in the RIKEN institute, Japan. Please visit it. <April 26, 2007>


An excellent report that shows overestimation of the mass of cut food. <April 2, 2007>



(Apparent 10 grams)

Wada, Y., Tsuzuki, D., Kobayashi, N., Hayakawa, F., and Kohyama, K. (2007) Visual illusion in mass estimation of cut food. Appetite, in press

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2007.01.009

Akiyoshi's comment: How about the "cut food" illusion for the nickname?


I had missed an excellent site of visual illusions. Thus I have made a link from my link page to the site shown below. <March 7, 2007>

Shapiro Perception Lab
This demonstration page includes new illusions and excellent designs! new!!
<March 19, 2007>


A review of tilt illusions has been published! <March 7, 2007>

Kitaoka, A. (2007) Tilt illusions after Oyama (1960): A review. Japanese Psychological Research, 49, 7-19.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/jpr/49/1 (Special issue: Optical illusions in JPR)

This paper includes 45 figures! This might be the record as the number of figures in one paper.
PDF request to Akiyoshi Kitaoka

Special thanks to: Professor Tadasu Oyama


 

Ichiro Fujita, professor of the Osaka University, examined the relationship between the visibility of "Rotating snakes" illusion and age. As a result, the older the observers are, the more frequent those who did not see the illusion.. <February 8, 2007>

Previous surveys
Survey at the Osaka City Air Terminal (October 21,2006) "There was a negative correlation"
Survey at the University of Air (December 25, 2005) "There was no correlation"
Survey at the University of Tsukuba (July 7, 2005) "There was no correlation"
Survey at the VSS2005 Demo Night (May 9, 2005) "There was a negative correlation"

In the library of the Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, Kitaoka's illusion designs are exhibited with geometrical illusions in the days of Wundt. <February 7, 2005>


"Rotating snakes" appears in the February issue of Scientific American Mind. <February 7, 2005>

A Moving Experience
How the eyes can see movement where it does not exist
By Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Diane Rogers-Ramachandran


**** SECOND CALL FOR ILLUSION SUBMISSIONS: THE THIRD ANNUAL BEST VISUAL ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST****

http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

*** We are happy to announce the world's 3rd annual Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest!!*** The deadline for illusion submissions is February 15th, 2007!

The 2007 Contest Gala will be held in Sarasota, Florida (Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall) on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 (7.30pm-10.00pm), during the week of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) conference. Refreshments will be served.

The 2006 annual contest, also held in Sarasota, Florida, was a huge success, which drew numerous accolades from attendees as well as international media coverage. The First, Second and Third Prize winners were Max Dursteler (Universitätsspital Zürich, Switzerland), Peter Tse (Dartmouth College, USA), and Gideon Caplovitz & Peter Tse (Dartmouth College, USA). To see the illusions, photo galleries and other highlights from the 2006 contest, go to: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

Visual Illusion Contestants are invited to submit novel visual or multimodal illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2006) in standard image, movie or html formats. An international panel of impartial judges (including Akiyoshi Kitaoka) will rate the submissions and narrow them to the top ten. Then, at the Contest Gala in Sarasota, the top ten illusionists will present their contributions and the attendees of the event (that means you!) will vote to pick the TOP THREE WINNERS!

The renowned sculptor and artist, Guido Moretti, has created three all new amazing works of art to serve as trophies for the TOP THREE winners!

See the trophies at: here

Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted to the 2007 contest, as long as they meet the above requirements and were not among the top three winners in previous years.

Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the panel of judges and the authors/creators will retain full copyright. No illusions will be posted on the illusion contest's website without the creators' explicit permission. As with submitting your work to any scientific conference, participating in the Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also submitting your work for publication elsewhere.

Submissions can be made to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Coordinator, Neural Correlate Society) via email (smart@neuralcorrelate.com) until February 15, 2007. Illusion submissions should come with a (no more than) one-page description of the illusion and its theoretical underpinnings (if known). Illusions will be rated according to:

. Significance to our understanding of the visual system . Simplicity of the description . Sheer beauty . Counterintuitive quality . Spectacularity

Visit the illusion contest website for further information and to see last year's illusions: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

Submit your ideas now and take home this prestigious award!

On behalf of the Neural Correlate Society: Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest Coordinator)

Neural Correlate Society Executive Committee: Jose-Manuel Alonso, Stephen Macknik, Luis Martinez, Xoana Troncoso, Peter Tse

<January 18, 2007>


Telegraph.co.uk has featured visual illusion, which includes the optimized Fraser-Wilcox illusion. Click here <January 10, 2007>


Illusion news 4 (January 2006 - December 2006)

Illusion news 3 (January 2006 - May 2006)

Illusion news 2 (April 2005 - December 2005)

Illusion news 1 (2002 - March 2005)


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