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That is not an example of how weak our brain is. That is an example of how incredibly intelligent our brain is. If you saw both tables in the real, physical, n
by brianchu 11y ago
That is not an example of how weak our brain is. That is an example of how incredibly intelligent our brain is.
If you saw both tables in the real, physical, natural world, because of the effect of perspective, the table on the left is indeed physically longer than the width of the table on the right. Our brain is correctly inferring this from perspective/trigonometry. The visual system is designed to correctly interpret the natural world, not correctly interpret lengths of line segments on a slide. This illustrates how hard it is to create computer algorithms that robustly infer 3D from 2D (this inference requires taking cues from shading, perspective, etc.)
Almost all optical illusions are examples of the strength, not weakness, of the human brain.
EDIT: I've emphasized the word "natural". The problem with the below examples of "illusions" constructed in the physical world is this: what do you expect the brain to do otherwise? When you see a scene in the world, is it a weakness that our brain discards the (extremely unlikely) possibility the scene is just a massive hologram five inches from your eyes, or a meticulously painted and lit cardboard scene? I don't.
- jessriedel 11y agoMany (probably most) of these optical illusions can be translated to the real physical world. Not surprising, it just requires situations that are outside the normal experiences of the human brain, especially in the ancestral environment. For instance: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/24/5b/59/245b59444cdcff14d139df7c37b7e271.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/24/5b/59/245b59444...
- im2w1l 11y agoI like this one http://0.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com/70/36/483778211d5177e9b7b74dbc8bbc8290-amazing-floating-paper-cube-illusion.gif http://0.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com/70/36/483778211d5177e9... It seems impossible a few seconds until the trick is revealed.
- dr_zoidberg 11y agoI was expecting that (or the T-rex variation of) when he mentioned optical illusions. The image he posted is more related to perspective than how the visual cortex works -- that is, it can even be done inside a 3d game/engine, with clever texturing.
- zardeh 11y agoThis would be a textbook example of overfitting, yes?
- IshKebab 11y agoYeah I suppose you could say that our "training set" doesn't include optical illusions. Though I wouldn't really call it overfitting because our brains haven't learnt specific training inputs, which is what happens with overfitting.