Perception illusion

A perceptual or illusion occurs when the subjective perception ( percept ) deviates from a physically explainable and reproducible measurement. One example is the moon illusion , which makes the moon appear larger near the horizon than at the zenith.

It is difficult to draw the line between deception and reality. Our eyes perceive two-dimensional images of the environment, but we still have the feeling of seeing three-dimensionally. We only get color impressions from a small section of the electromagnetic light spectrum. Shades in the infrared or UV range are closed to us.

Perceptual illusions affect all perceptual senses such as hearing, seeing or tasting.

Types of perceptual illusions

One can classify perceptual illusions according to the nature of the perception. The best known are the following types of deceptions:

• Optical illusion (sense of sight, e.g. customs officer deception )
• Acoustic deception (sense of hearing)
• Haptic illusion (sense of touch)
• Thermal illusion (temperature sensation)
• Vestibular illusion ( sense of balance )

With such a division, some deceptions fall into more than one category. For example, the McGurk effect is an opto-acoustic illusion.

In philosophy, phenomenology and epistemology deal with perceptual illusions.

See also

• Movement vision , constancy phenomenon , hallucination , illusion
• Chronostasis

literature

• Rainer Wolf: Illusion and "New Age" esotericism. In: Skeptiker 4, 1993, p. 88
• Rainer Wolf: The biological sense of the illusion. In: Biology in Our Time. 17, 1987, p. 33
• Alfred Maelicke (Ed.): From the stimulus of the senses. VCH, Weinheim 1990, ISBN 3-527-28058-8

Web links

• www.wissenschaft.de: What erotic images do with attention The distraction through emotional representation blinds you to other stimuli in the short term
• About invisible gorillas and dancing bears (lecture)
• 64 Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena (Visual Illusion Optical Illusion)
• Tower of the Senses