Illusions & Case Studies

Usually, our minds are able to understand that when they see a picture of a smaller person higher up in the photo and a larger person farther down in the photo, that the person higher up and smaller is just farther away. Our minds out the picture into context and realize that the smaller man is not just sitting on the bigger man's head--and that the "smaller" man is, in reality, not small at all, just farther away. Even though the physical sensation is different, our top down processing takes care of it for us and we are able to understand what is actually going on. This is called relative size. Put this together with relative height, our minds ability to recognize that objects higher up are not actually smaller, and you are able to understand two essential points in monocular cues (one eye). Of course there are many other monocular cues, and even binocular cues, but we were all in class for that so I'm not going to go through all of them.

What I do want to focus on are illusions. Not just any illusions--some of my favorites: Forced perspective illusions. You've all seen these a thousand times before, because anyone can make one and every time they are impressive and usually will make you smile. So, what are these forced perspective illusions? Well, lets break apart the term. Illusions are something that are unlikely to be perceived correctly or interpreted correctly by our senses. They basically take all of these fixed laws and principles we know about perspective and throw them out the window. Fixed perspective is a certain type of illusions. They are the illusions that make an object appear farther away, closer, larger, or smaller than it actually is. Basically, they take  relative size and height and use it against us to manipulate our minds into perceiving something that is not actually there.

An example of forced perspective would be the Ames Room illusion. In class we discussed this one and I don't know about you, but when I saw the men in the video switch places, I was stunned. How could my mind perceive the bigger person as being a giant compared to the smaller person when they are, in actuality, the same size. I'm still not such a big fan of this illusion because it's just the floor doing the tricks. Here are some better examples of forced perspective illusions:

Since illusions defy our normal perception, they allow us to see how perception really works--how our minds normally perceive. In this way, they are very similar to a case study. Both use an unusual case to help psychologists and researchers to understand more about our minds and they both pave the way to further research. Speaking about case studies, one popped up on Yahoo just last week that I found very interesting. I mean, everything on Yahoo is interesting, but this one is really crazy. It's about a girl who looks and acts like a one year old, but is actually 20. 

Brooke Greenberg z"l, who passed away last week, was a Jewish girl who never developed beyond the toddler stage. Throughout her 20 years, she had the body and mind of a one year old. Doctors are saying that her unique condition, which they call Syndrome X, can potentially help doctors and scientists discover, and hopefully prevent, age related disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. Her doctor has said that her condition has shined light on many aspects of aging that was previously unknown. Scientists are continuing to study the stem cells taken from her skin and are saying that her life was a "gift to modern science and humanity."