The data from yesterday’s posts was interesting. The theory was that more women than men would see the picture as a fish rather than a face. And that proved to be the case. Although the vast majority of both sexes reported seeing a face, only 4% of men vs 12% of women saw the fish first – a statistically significant result given the 2000 people or so voting. How odd. I wonder why….
Last week I staged another battle of the clever stuff, and put the clever montage against the weird purple moving thing. The purple thing won by a whisker, so it stays on. This week it is up against a wonderful habituation illusion. Have a look at them both….
….here is the weird purple thing….
And to experience the new contender click here (thanks @_clarrison)….
Vote now and feel free to explain your decision.
September 30, 2009 at 6:48 am |
The strobe movement illusion is so old there are probably versions of it in the fossil record. Weird purple thing is still fun to stare at.
WEIRD PURPLE THING 2012
September 30, 2009 at 7:03 am |
Purple thingy is still better….
September 30, 2009 at 7:06 am |
Strobe movement Illusion is ‘old but gold’
The effect of everywhere you stare at… is so cool
September 30, 2009 at 7:09 am |
Purple Thing. Strobe Illusion isn’t working for me… I got light headed but didn’t see anything strange…
September 30, 2009 at 7:22 am |
The weird purple thing moves if you use diverted vision
IT MOVES!!!!
eppur se muove and all that.
it moves.
September 30, 2009 at 8:04 am |
The weird Purple things win my vote for this week also
September 30, 2009 at 8:47 am |
I love the strobe one, cos it shows you how hugely your vision is affected by what your brain’s doing, rather than what the light is doing. Nice.
September 30, 2009 at 9:06 am |
Still the purple thing – it looks great whilst reading text above or below it!
The reason is simple… the purple thing doesn’t need to move or be animated to have the cool effect.
September 30, 2009 at 10:10 am |
I still like the weird purple thing as it doesnt have to be animated to still have an awesome effect! Very clever!
September 30, 2009 at 10:29 am |
This is the first time in the entire Battle of the Clever Stuff where I have strongly disagreed with the developing consensus.
(As distinct from the times when I voted differently from the consensus but it was a close thing and I didn’t really care.)
The strobe thing doesn’t even work for me, so I have to vote for the purple thing. At the time of writing, however, about 2/3 of people prefer the strobes.
Oddly, most of the people who have left comments so far prefer the purple thing, just as I do. What an interesting psychological phenomenon it would be if there’s a correlation between people who like weird purple things and people who post comments on blogs.
September 30, 2009 at 10:35 am |
The strobe illusion thing is awesome.
To me it was neck to neck bu the strobe illusion won out because it made the real world spin!!
The reasons it almost DIDN’T win were that a) it needs animation to work while the weird purple thing can be printed. b) Weird purple thing tricks your eyes WHILE STAYING STILL. While the strobe movement needs to move to train your eye to follow that path.
But it still wins because I’ve never experienced anything like that before.
September 30, 2009 at 12:19 pm |
Strobe it is! And Specs has the reason pinned. Strobe takes the weirdness out of its confined space on the webpage and busts out of the virtual world and into the real one. I have it on good authority that strobe’s ultimate goal is world domination. You gotta admire it’s chutzpah.
Be gone, purple thing. Your heyday is long past. People are starting to say some pretty snarky things behind your back. Really, its just tragic that you’re still hanging around at this point. Know when your 15 minutes is up, dude.
September 30, 2009 at 1:24 pm |
Purple thing, less time consuming!
September 30, 2009 at 1:25 pm |
strobe thing is good, but i’d known that one before. so my vote goes to the “weird purple thingy” – you should trademark that name!
September 30, 2009 at 1:27 pm |
Regarding the optical illusion of the fish vs. the face, I may have an explanation.
The orientation of the picture was such that, if you saw a face, you saw it in the normal orientation of faces. If you were then told that the picture was also a fish, you could see it with little trouble, but the problem is that a fish would normally be viewed at a right angle than the picture was set up.
If you had presented the picture rotated on its side, I wonder if more people would have seen a fish than a face.
September 30, 2009 at 2:18 pm |
Oh, that strobe illusion was awesome. My eyes are still tripping out! Sorry to the purple-thingy followers, but I rather like this new one.
September 30, 2009 at 2:42 pm |
Can I vote neither? They’re giving me a migraine. Well, the new one is worse on the migraine than the purple thing, so maybe I’ll vote purple thing.
September 30, 2009 at 2:43 pm |
OK, voted for the strobe since I don’t have to look at it every time I visit the blog. The purple thing is less avoidable and still gives me a migraine.
September 30, 2009 at 3:33 pm |
I don’t get it : the strobe is not working at all for me, I don’t understand why…
I imagined it would be something like these ones ( that REALLY worked very well for me ):
http://www.oliviermermet.com/blog/2008/01/09/wonderbra-illusion-doptique-et-spirale-cest-gonfle/
http://www.psikopat.com/html/spirale.htm
( they are in french, but the first is just a youtube video, and in the second, just click wherever you can until you get some spirales… )
September 30, 2009 at 4:28 pm |
I vote for the third option, the purple thing after looking at the strobe.
September 30, 2009 at 5:33 pm |
The strobe thing.
First of all it is one of the coolest, strangest effects I’ve had without chemical supplements.
Second, it persists after I’m done looking at it and changes my perception of real stuff (unlike staring at a white wall like some other color illusions).
Third, it gives some insight into our brains by demonstrating that what we think we see can be influenced on what we’ve seen seconds before.
I wonder if there are fewer comments about the strobe thing because you can barely type after looking at it. I’m still a little dizzy…
September 30, 2009 at 6:16 pm |
Loved the new one – but I’m not sure if I voted for it, I’ still a little dizzy
September 30, 2009 at 7:20 pm |
The way people look upon that first picture (face or fish) depends on way more things I think. I e.g. am not the same way behind this pc all the time, nor do I focus all the time the same way. And will I focus differently on a picture on a site like this then when I run into it unexpectedly. My focus keeps changing from sharp to the point to more random .. at times I go right to the core in a picture .. at other times I leasure a split second and see only the random picture. It’s not seeing perhaps, when you just see the random picture .. at least not from full conscious, you don’t study it yet.
Oh well, I can never see towards myself as the standard due to circumstances but I do know that I therefor can see it a bit more upclose at times as well inside. With me, many others I presume. All not the standard.
Studying life is difficult .. it keeps moving … is not a static thing.
September 30, 2009 at 7:23 pm |
Saw the strobe thing at BA’s, but it didn’t me impress me much. Weird purple thing it is.
September 30, 2009 at 10:10 pm |
Hm, at first I thought the strobe thingy is a clear winner this week. But then I tried to “do” it again – it won’t work for me another time…
October 1, 2009 at 1:23 am |
[...] Battle of the clever stuff The data from yesterday’s posts was interesting. The theory was that more women than men would see the picture as a [...] [...]
October 1, 2009 at 3:10 am |
stuff are still floating
the strobe thing’s awesome
I never saw anything like it
October 1, 2009 at 10:33 am |
Has anyone tried looking at the weird purple thing AFTER looking at the strobe thingy?
That gets my vote!
October 1, 2009 at 8:03 pm |
The weird purple thing clearly wins in my opinion due to it’s lack of animation
October 2, 2009 at 12:55 pm |
Just an observation, but I find the effect of the strobe similar to that caused by extended periods of playing Guitar Hero (or Rock Band) on expert! After finishing a reasonably long, intense track (anything by Maiden should do the trick!) and looking away from the screen it often appears that sections of the room are eerily floating upwards.
It’s quite useful as it’s become something of an early warning sign to me that it’s time to stop playing with a silly toy guitar and go to bed.
October 3, 2009 at 10:00 am
I get that after only playing one song – I think it probably doesn’t help that I don’t wear my glasses when playing so really have to concentrate on the screen….same happens when you play Donkey Konga (bongoes)
October 2, 2009 at 3:11 pm |
As uksceptic says:
Strobe thingy first, then the purple one.
Then headache…
October 3, 2009 at 9:59 am |
Especially love the strobe followed by the purple thing – it’s a tough call for me but the strobe won out in the end. It looks like you’re moving into warp speed!!
October 3, 2009 at 10:43 am |
Prefer the weird purple thing – probably because of the colors and that the purple thing’s design seems less mechanical than that of the strobe.
October 3, 2009 at 9:01 pm |
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October 6, 2009 at 12:16 pm |
The weird purple thing is still too weird! I probably made a mistake doing the strobe thingy when I have a migraine!