Interesting Perception Links (By Chapter)!

Please consider sending me any interesting links you come across that directly relate to a chapter. If the link is added to this list, you will get extra-credit!

Exam Period 1Exam Period 2Exam Period 3Exam Period 4
CH 2 (Vision) CH 4 (Vision) CH 5 (Vision) CH 6 (Vision) CH 9 (Hearing) CH 10 (Hearing) CH 13 (Touch) CH 14 (Smell) CH 15 (Taste)

Chapter 02: First Steps in Vision

Chapter 04: Perceiving and Recognizing Objects

Chapter 05: Perception of Color

  • Color Mixing. The mystery of magenta (Addresses color perception, color mixing, and the strange case of magenta.)

  • Qualia. Is your red the same as my red? (An exploration of color vision and the philosophical question of whether everybody perceives colors the same way. This gets into some theory of mind experiments.)

  • Color Afterimages. Negative color afterimage of a courtyard (A particularly effective color afterimage demo.)

  • Color Blindness. Colorblind: A colorful guide to colorblindness (This video won first prize at the 2013 Salazar Awards in the category of "Video & Animation," as well as a 2013 Applied Arts Magazine Student Award.)

  • Color blindness 4: Simulation (Simulation of color blindness. Estimate of what color scenes look like with different levels of color deficiency. Range includes: zero cones, one cone, two cones, and two normal and one hybrid cone. The latter is most common. Dalton describes his color vision.)

  • Color Constancy. Incredible color constancy illusion! (Video clip of an amazing effect called color constancy. This illusion is caused by the separate red and green illumination of the two cubes and by the apparent shadows that are cast on their front surfaces. We interpret colors as being constantly the same even if there are shadows or different illumination conditions (such as the red and green "lighting" effect). We also define/perceive colors based on their surroundings. The end result is that we see the marked square on the left cube as being light blue (cyan) and the marked square on the right cube as being red. Removing their cue-producing surroundings and placing them next to each other reveals that they are both, in fact, reddish-grey.)

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Chapter 06: Space Perception & Binocular Vision

  • Exploring the Power of Perspective. A normal looking room is revealed to be full of illusions as a man interacts with it.

  • OK Go: The Writing's on the Wall. Alternative rock band OK Go's newest music video for The Writing's on the Wall takes advantage of multiple optical illusions filmed in a single take. Taking nearly three weeks to assemble, the video had to be redone 50 times to get everything right.

  • Animated Stereogram. An animated stereogram, best viewed with cross-fusion. The motion helps the images to snap into focus.

  • Motion Parallax. Walt Disney's MultiPlane Camera (Filmed: Feb. 13, 1957). A classic short explaining how Disney studios used a layering effect to create a sense of depth.

  • Anamorphic Images. Mind Your Step: Unreal Street Art Illusion Created by Erik Johansson. When viewed from a particular angle, people seem to be standing on a cliff over a giant chasm.

  • Forced Perspective. In Lord of the Rings movies. A short video explaining how they did moving shots with forced perspective in the Lord of the Rings movies.

  • A Video Game Based on Forced Perspective. Pillow Castle Games, a team of video game developers from Carnegie Mellon University, shows off a demo for their new first-person puzzle solving game. It uses the concept of forced perspective as a mechanism for solving challenges.

  • Excellent Optical Illusionist. A set of optical illusions invented by a Japanese mathematician.

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Chapter 09: Hearing: Physiology & Psychoacoustics

  • What does sound look like? A special camera process allows sound to be seen in an image.

  • Pyro board: 2D Rubens' Tube! This shows unique standing wave patterns of sound in the box. The pressure variations due to the sound waves affect the flow rate of flammable gas from the holes in the Pyro Board and therefore affect the height and colour of flames. This is interesting for visualizing standing wave patterns and simply awesome to watch when put to music.

  • Amazing resonance experiment! Sound waves vibrate a plate of metal with salt sprinkled on it. At certain frequencies, beautiful, complicated patterns are formed by the grains of salt.

  • Vibration: See the unseen up close. Slow motion images of vibrating surfaces as they are struck to produce noise and music.

  • Mega bass 40,000 watts. The effect of 40, 000 watts of mega bass on a woman's hair are immediate. Watch to see the electrifying effect while she prudently covers her ears from the heavy sound.

  • Auditory Transduction (2002). A video by Brandon Pletsch takes viewers on a step-by-step voyage through the inside of the ear, to the acoustic accompaniment of classical music.

  • Cochlear Implants. Deaf toddler hears his dad's voice for the first time

  • A deaf woman who can finally hear meets Ellen. A previously deaf woman talks about life after receiving a cochlear implant.

  • 26-year-old woman hears for the first time. A video of a deaf woman wearing an auditory implant that is activated for the first time. Very touching.

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Chapter 10: Hearing in the Environment

Chapter 13: Touch

Chapter 14: Olfaction (smell)

Chapter 15: Taste

  • The difference between taste and flavor. Taste refers to our five sensitivities (sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and umami) while flavor is a "hedonic" sense involving smell, texture, and expectation.

  • The science of taste. Scientists decode how our taste and olfactory receptors work; top California chefs are taking that knowledge and creating alchemy in the kitchen.

  • Food science sensory lab. The Purdue food science sensory evaluation laboratory provides sensory analysis through subjective tasting of food acceptability.

  • Food professor talks sensory evaluation. Dr. Lisa Duizer (University of Guelph, Canada) visited the Regional Food Academy at Harper Adams to deliver a seminar about the perceptions of tastes and flavors in foods.

  • Babies eating lemons for the first time. Did not want to end on a sour note... but I guess I did! Watch some babies all have similar reactions when trying lemons for the first time: eyes closing, mouth opening, tongue sticking out, puckering.

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