[visionlist] immunity from illusions (particularly visual illusions)

[Michael Herzog]

Dear All
We just recently reported that there are few significant correlations 
between illusion magnitudes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27919676
Thus, maybe just an instantiation of variability......
All the best
Michael

Qasim Zaidi wrote:
> There are individual differences, but they have not been much studied
> until the recent push by Jeremy Willmer at VSS.
>
> I had a brilliant undergraduate at Columbia, who went on to be a star
> grad student at MIT, has done start-ups, been CTO of multiple companies,
> won an Emmy, etc etc, and he had no simultaneous brightness or color
> induction, as measured by objective methods (nulling on a 2AFC adaptive
> staircase).  He was also a meticulous observer in motion experiments,
> where he saw all kinds of effects.
>
> You may want to see what else is different about these students.  I
> suspect that they will be normal on low level detection and
> discrimination experiments, but that may still be worth checking.
>
> Cheers
> QZ
>
> Qasim Zaidi PhD
> SUNY Distinguished Professor
>
> Graduate Center for Vision Research,
> State University of New York College of Optometry,
> 33 West 42nd St, New York, NY  10036.
> Office: 212-938-5542; Lab: 212-938-5756; Fax: 212-938-5537
> E-mail: qz at sunyopt.edu <mailto:qz at sunyopt.edu>
> http://poseidon.sunyopt.edu/Zaidi/index.php
>
> *"Dr. Katherine Moore" <moorek at arcadia.edu <mailto:moorek at arcadia.edu>>
> writes:*
> Dear vision experts,
>
>
> I was hoping some of you could help me out with something that made me
> curious all of last semester. Last semester was about the fifth time
> I've taught Sensation & Perception. Even though my classes are small
> (less than 25 students), each time I teach this course I have a student
> or two who is unusual in some sensory way -- just one working eye,
> synesthesia, no sense of smell, blind, prosopagnosia, etc.
>
>
> This past semester I had two students who did not experience illusions
> (out of just 10 students!) One of them truly did not experience any of
> the illusions. Another did not experience the vast majority of them. We
> mostly did visual illusions, but among the few auditory illusions we
> did, these students didn't experience them either. I have no reason to
> think the students were lying about it--they are very sincere people.
> And they both had trouble with an assignment that required students to
> view some new illusions, describe what they saw and what was really
> happening, and explain the illusion. These two students didn't see what
> the rest of the class saw, and only saw "what was really happening."
>
>
> The illusions spanned the course, which is to say they touched upon many
> different causes. For example, the Hermann grid variations, including
> the "disappearing dots" one that went viral this summer/fall were
> affected, as well as the color constancy and size constancy ones like
> the checkershadow illusion, Ames room, etc.
>
>
> What do you all know about this, like what the cause could be for this
> immunity from illusions of many kinds, or individual variation in the
> experience of illusions?
>
>
> Best,
> Katherine
>
> Katherine S Moore
> Assistant Professor of Psychology
> Arcadia University
> 450 S. Easton Rd
> Glenside, PA 19038
> Office: Boyer Hall room 128
> Phone: (215) 517-2429
> https://sites.google.com/a/arcadia.edu/amclab/
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> visionlist mailing list
> visionlist at visionscience.com
> http://visionscience.com/mailman/listinfo/visionlist_visionscience.com
>