Introduction to Psychology

Chapter 3 Perceiving the Colorful World—Brain and Perception

That's why people tasteless when they have a cold.If you don't believe me, try this test: Take a slice of apple and a slice of raw potato, pinch your nose and taste it. Does the difference disappear?

Section [-] Are Lefties Smarter - How Our Brains Work
When we see the things around us, we always call out their names easily, for example, this is cornflower, that is a bus, 500 meters away is an old blind old man, and the tree that fell on the roadside branches The bird is a sparrow.As you effortlessly recognize what's in front of you, have you ever wondered what happens in your brain when you utter the word to describe a situation?
In fact, even just reading the word "apple" written on paper requires a very complicated neural transmission process.First, the word "apple" on the paper constitutes a visual stimulus, which is detected by nerve cells in the retina, which then transmit this signal through the thalamus to the visual cortex in the brain.The job of the visual cortex is to process all visual information.

The visual cortex then sends the nerve impulses to a subregion in the temporal lobe of the brain called the angular gyrus.There, the brain finds the corresponding auditory information for the visual information, which is then passed on to the auditory cortex.The image the eye sees is then interpreted as "oh, the word is apple".Finally, the auditory information is relayed to the motor cortex, which stimulates the lips, tongue, and throat to work together to sound the word "apple."

Imagine that just to recognize a word, you need to go through so many brain partitions and consume so much energy, then after reading a slogan, reciting a poem, or even reading a tome, What a mental effort it takes!Based on such work intensity, we can also understand why this tiny area of ​​the body consumes 1/5 of the energy of the human body.

From the process of recognizing a word in the brain, it can be found that each area of ​​the brain has a reasonable division of labor in the process of working.Neuroscience research has also confirmed this. For example, the frontal lobe of the brain is responsible for the body motor area that manages the movement of the skeletal muscles of the whole body, and the temporal lobe is responsible for understanding other people's language and listening to what you say.Once a certain area is damaged, it will affect the corresponding functions of the body, and even affect a person's personality.

In 1848, Harlow published an observation of a patient with a prefrontal lesion, recording the before and after performance of a person with a prefrontal lesion.At that time, there was a foreman named Gage in the United States. When he led the workers to fill the rock with explosives, the sparks from the collision ignited the gunpowder.The explosion caused an iron rod 1 meter long and 2.5 centimeters in diameter to penetrate his face, pass through his forehead, and fly out from the top of his head.

After the iron rod flew out, Gage fell into a coma on the spot.A few minutes later, he miraculously woke up.He can talk and move, and after his companions sent him to the hospital, he can even walk into the operating room by himself.However, the iron rod caused serious damage to the prefrontal lobe of Gage's brain.Two months later, Gage was discharged from the hospital smoothly, and all his physiological functions returned to normal, but his temperament changed a lot. Those who knew him felt that he seemed to be a different person.

Before his injury, Gage was a smart and capable person, and he got along well with his work partners.After his injury, he became paranoid, brutish, indecisive, and indifferent to his colleagues.He also became inattentive about the work that had once aroused his great interest, and he was no longer competent for the job of foreman.

Harlow's report made it possible for the first time to understand the impact of prefrontal lobe damage on people's psychology, and it also attracted the attention of researchers in this field.Neuroscience findings show that the frontal lobe is the largest of the four lobes of the cerebral hemisphere, accounting for about 1/3 of the area, and plays an important role in human thinking and behavior.After the frontal lobe is damaged or artificially removed, people cannot carry out purposeful and planned activities, and even lose a large part of their personality, and at the same time lose their original innovation ability.

Ironically, even though damage to the frontal lobe can turn a person with emotion and personality into a walking dead, in the 20s and 50s, many psychiatrists performed frontal lobe removal on mental patients. The founders even won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

As lobotomies became popular, researchers were publishing their findings in scientific journals.Frontal lobotomy, they proclaim to the world, is the best way to quiet violent or suicidal patients. In 1942, a scientist presented at a medical presentation in New York that lobotomized patients did become lazy, even childlike.However, such a result is still a happy event for their family.

For this extremely inhuman treatment, the movies "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Shutter Island" have had in-depth descriptions. In 1962, after the original novel of the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" came out, a series of campaigns against the abuse of electric shocks and amputation of the frontal lobe were launched in the western world to treat mental patients. Improved.

The human brain is divided into left and right hemispheres, and the left and right hemispheres are connected with each other and each performs its own duties.The left hemisphere of the brain is good at abstract thinking, good at analysis and reasoning, and works strictly in accordance with logical order. Therefore, the left hemisphere controls people's language and rationality.On the contrary, the right hemisphere of the brain is good at thinking in images and is in charge of people's creativity and intuition. Therefore, the right hemisphere will produce artistic creation, musical works and fine arts.

For the general public, those who work all day long and ignore life and entertainment in pursuit of career success are pure "left-brain people".Experiments have shown that "left-brained people" can experience the thrill of success, but cannot enjoy happiness. Therefore, even if they achieve extraordinary results in their careers, it is not easy for them to be happy.On the contrary, "right-brained people" are good at intuition and feeling, and can experience the beauty and joy of life in music and art.

The development of biology and neuroscience has given us a more detailed understanding of the function of the brain. However, people did not know the working mode of the brain well from the beginning.Human beings' understanding of the left and right brains begins with Sperry's "split brain" experiment.

In the 20s, the American neuropsychologist Sperry conducted a systematic study on split-brain patients.Sperry designed a test device to detect changes in brain function in patients.The test device has two left and right screens. The text presented on the left will enter the left field of view, while the text presented on the right will enter the right field of view, without interference between each other.

The experimental results showed that when the experimenter presented the word "apple" on the right screen, the split-brain patients could read the word and write it out with the right hand; if the word "apple" was presented on the left screen, the patient could not read it , just reports that "saw a flash".Oddly enough, the patient was able to find the item "apple" in the bag containing various items.

In further experiments, Sperry found that when split-brain patients were asked to use their left and right hands to draw pictures of real objects, even if the patient was originally right-handed, the pictures drawn by his left hand were closer to the real thing than his right hand.

A series of experiments confirmed that the left hemisphere of the brain has an advantage in language, while the right hemisphere has an advantage in feeling shapes and three-dimensional space.When the connection between the left and right brains—the corpus callosum—is severed, although the left and right brains can still work, they show two completely different consciousnesses.

Habitually, most people like to use their right hand to complete important work. Due to the interaction between the brain and body actions, the left brain becomes an important area for people to accumulate knowledge and work experience. For this reason, the left brain has to load more work .At this time, "left-handers" who are accustomed to using their left hands can give full play to the function of their right brain and adjust the pressure of life.

The so-called "left-handed" refers to left-handed people. When dealing with daily affairs, it is more convenient and more coordinated to use the left hand.However, "left-handed people" in life always stand out among the right-handed people, especially when eating, as long as one of the people sitting around eats with his left hand, he may be as good as the people around him. There is a "chopstick fight" situation.However, it is also said that "lefties" are smarter than right-handers.

In terms of IQ, there is no data to prove that left-handed people are smarter than right-handed people.However, in the case of human beings as a whole tending to develop the left brain, "left-handed" seems to make up for this imbalance.Some people say that left-handed people have better visual adjustment ability underwater; others say that left-handed people have later puberty than right-handed people.There are also curious people who have discovered that a small number of left-handers in human beings often exert great energy in society, such as Bill Gates, one of the founders of Microsoft, Shigeru Miyamoto, the "father of Mario", and the United States at the end of the 20th century. multiple presidents.

Between left-handers and right-handers, there is another interesting phenomenon: when a person draws in an unconscious state, if the person's profile happens to be painted, the left-handed person will face the right side, and the right-handed person will face the right side. The face drawn by the right hand faces left; if you draw a circle after making a cross, the left hand will write counterclockwise, and the right hand will do the opposite.If you don't believe me, you can find a friend and verify it yourself!
Section [-] Does the Sixth Sense Really Exist—A Magical Feeling
As a painter, Jonathan created a large number of abstract paintings with brilliant colors.These paintings won him a great artistic reputation and helped him enter the most brilliant artistic career in his life.

In the later period of his creation, there was a sudden change of style for a while.Instead of painting brightly colored works, he turned to black and white-based creative exploration.In the eyes of outsiders, Jonathan has entered a fresh and interesting creative stage, and his works begin to show a kind of simplicity and order in color.However, no one knew that the root cause of this change was that he lost his color perception and became color blind.

When Jonathan was 65, a brain injury damaged his optic nerve.From then on, he could only see grey, black and white.Those colorful paintings in the past have all become dirty and chaotic spots in his eyes.Living in a world lacking in color, Jonathan could only eat black olives and white rice, so his creations became only black and white.

After adapting to the world of only black and white, Jonathan began to create mainly black and white works.Surprisingly, his admirers did not dislike his works because of the change of painting style, but applauded for his bold innovation.

For Jonathan, although the loss of color perception was an unfortunate event, it opened a new door to the art world.While mourning the loss of color, he chose to continue to use art to describe the world as he saw it.

There are many stimuli around us at any time, such as a pot of prickly cactus, a mouthful of sweet cappuccino, a burst of elegant and quiet flower fragrance, or a child's soft little hand.These things exist as common sense, but at the same time we see, taste, smell or touch them.And the mechanism by which we know the existence of stimuli is the psychological feeling.

As receptors on the body, the nerve impulses produced by organs such as eyes and ears become sensations.Feeling allows us to experience happiness from sight, hearing, smell, taste, etc., and it also becomes a protective net for human survival. For example, sound warnings allow us to escape from dangerous areas; environment etc.

After material abundance, there are food of various tastes waiting for us to choose at any time, and pop music of different styles is playing on every street.The existence of these stimuli makes people accustomed to indulge in sensuality and enjoy a kind of sensual satisfaction.As a result, people began to doubt whether people could live a healthy and comfortable life if they were "deprived" of these feelings around them.To this end, Canadian psychologists conducted a "sensory deprivation" experiment.

In 1954, Baxton, Heron, and Scott conducted the experiment at the Heber Laboratory in Montreal, Canada.All the subjects in the experiment were recruited college student volunteers.

In order to create a feelingless environment, the experimenters locked the subjects in a room equipped with soundproof devices, and put them on translucent glasses to reduce visual stimulation.Then, they put on gloves to reduce the occurrence of various tactile stimuli.A bubble rubber pillow was placed on the subject's head, which can effectively prevent the cervical spine from contacting the bed.

After the experiment started, the subjects had to lie motionless on the bed except for eating and excreting.At this time, the state of the subject is equivalent to a state where all sensations are deprived.

The subjects who originally had the idea of ​​"taking a break" or "thinking about the paper" discovered after the experiment began that their ideas could not be realized at all.In the report after the experiment, some subjects said: "Lying there, I can't think about anything at all, my thinking is always jumping around, and I can't concentrate."

After eight hours passed, some subjects began to whistle, and some subjects appeared restless and began to talk to themselves.After the experiment lasted for several days, the subjects began to hallucinate.They'll see shapeless flickers, or hear dogs barking, alarm bells, or even marching mice.On the fourth day of the experiment, the subjects were unable to walk straight, and began to experience symptoms of slow reaction and trembling hands.After leaving the experimental environment, it took more than three days for the subjects to fully return to their normal living conditions.

After the experiment, Baxton and others came to the conclusion that if the human body and mind want to keep working in a normal state, they need to constantly get new stimuli from the outside world.Rich and varied environmental stimuli are necessary conditions for the survival and development of organisms.Although the stimuli in the environment sometimes make people physically and mentally uncomfortable, once all the stimuli are eliminated, it is equivalent to human suicide.

Of course, in a laboratory setting, sensory deprivation becomes an extreme case.It can be said that after anything becomes extreme, it is harmful to people's body and mind.However, for some addictive behaviors, such as smoking and overeating, you can try sensory deprivation to modify their behavior in this way.

Psychologists believe that for smokers, allowing them to stay in a smoking-limited environment for 24 hours can help enhance their self-control.In a smoking cessation experiment, the experimenter asked the subjects to lie down in a quiet dark room for 24 hours and do nothing except drink water and go to the toilet.While they were lying in bed, the black room would broadcast some news about the harmful effects of smoking on the radio.

One week after the end of the experiment, all subjects stopped smoking.One year later, 2/3 of the subjects were still no longer smoking.From this perspective, sensory deprivation may become a treatment for behavioral addicts.

In life, people often encounter such situations: a certain person is clearly in front of you, but you don’t notice it at all; the desk lamp at home suddenly changes color, and you have to be reminded by your family to find out; staring at the computer screen every day, The thick dust is still unable to enter the consciousness... This phenomenon is vividly called "turning a blind eye".

Daniel Simon, a professor of psychology at Harvard University in the United States, and his partner Daniel Levine jointly designed a "turn a blind eye" experiment.All recruited volunteers will fill in some basic information at the entrance of the laboratory. After completing the filling, the volunteers will send back the information, and then walk into the laboratory with great interest, expecting incredible things to happen.

However, Simon and Levine just asked them to do some ordinary experiments, because the purpose of this experiment is not there.After the experiment, the experimenter asked the subjects: "At the door of the laboratory, the person who handed you the form and the person who received the form are completely different in hairstyle, appearance, and body shape, but have you noticed?" Everyone was surprised and found it unbelievable. How could he not notice such an obvious change?When the experimenter showed them the video from the entrance of the laboratory, everyone couldn't help but ask themselves: "How could this happen?"

The results of the experiment showed that 75% of the subjects were completely unaware that the person in front of them had changed into another one.There are many other similar experiments.The experimenter would randomly find a subject to ask for directions on the road. Halfway through the question, another experimenter continued to ask, but the subject was unaware of it.

All the subjects were surprised by their own reactions. The main reason is that people have a tacit premise that as long as they open their eyes, everything that comes into view can be seen by the eyes.Studies by psychologists have proved that even if people keep their eyes on something, as long as the brain's attention is not on the things in front of them, people will still turn a blind eye.

The magic show is the application of this principle.Magicians with gorgeous skills will try to manipulate the attention of the audience, and try their best to place the key changing parts of the magic in the area where the audience is blind.In this way, although the audience stared at the magician's hand and wanted to see through the mystery, they accidentally fell into the magician's trap.

Compared with the blindsight phenomenon that people "turn a blind eye", the human eye has another peculiar function - not seeing.For many people who are blind or have eye diseases, they cannot perceive the things around them with their eyesight.Experiments have repeatedly proved that they can "see" things invisible to the eyes, or that their behavior is still guided by vision.This phenomenon of "not seeing without seeing" is called "blindsight".

Blindsight has been demonstrated in research led by Professor Held of Tilburg University in the Netherlands.The subject in the experiment is a man who has completely lost his eyesight. In life, he can only rely on crutches to distinguish obstacles on the road.However, in Professor Helder's experiment, he was able to respond to invisible expressions, and at the same time, he was able to pass smoothly on a passage full of various obstacles without encountering any obstacles.

In addition, an eye disease patient named Tang also proved the existence of blindsight.When Don was 14, he suffered from headaches.Years of headaches had made his vision in his left eye worse. Twenty years later, Tang decided to undergo head surgery in order to completely cure his headache.During the surgery, doctors removed part of his occipital cortex.After the surgery, Don finally didn't have to suffer from headaches.However, the operation made his left eye completely blind. Even if a light spot appeared in his left eye, he could not detect it.

Based on past experience, psychologists believe that although Tang can't see the objects in his left visual field, he may not necessarily be unable to perceive them.Therefore, the psychologist designed a series of experiments to prove the existence of his perceptual ability.When the experimenter presented a light spot in his left visual field, Tang could accurately point out the position of the light spot with his hand, although he could not see it.The experimenter presented a straight line, and he could also guess whether the line was horizontal or vertical.Although Tang has repeatedly claimed that his judgments are all guesswork, psychologists still believe that his brain uses multiple channels besides the optic nerve to complete the perception of things.

Psychologists at the University of British Columbia in Canada also conducted a "blindsight" experiment on 40 subjects.The experimenter presented some pictures on the computer screen. The content of the pictures was very simple, but the time they stayed was very short, only 0.25 seconds.During the test, the experimenter will intersperse a smaller picture to prove the existence of the subject's "blindsight" ability.

The experimental results showed that about 1/3 of the subjects could feel the changes in the picture, although they repeatedly claimed that they did not see the shape of the picture at all, let alone determine what changes had taken place in the picture.

The experimenters concluded that even if people's eyes do not have time to distinguish what they see or where changes have occurred, the brain's operating system can perceive this subtle change.Psychologists say that even if the process of "blindsight" in the brain is unknown, it explains many problems about "sixth sense".

A "A Bite of China" tantalized people's taste buds, and all foodies began to look for delicious food everywhere, allowing their tongues to swim in the wonderful world of flavors.For the final ownership of food, although the tongue is a passage, people still cannot give up the short-term enjoyment in the passage, and try their best to research various delicacies to satisfy the desire of the tongue.

People can taste the taste of all kinds of food, the biggest contributor is our tongue.If you stick out your tongue in front of a mirror, you will see many tiny protrusions on the back of your tongue called papillae.According to the shape, there are four types of lingual papillae, which are filamentous papillae, fungal papillae, contour papillae and lobular papillae.In addition to the filiform papillae, there are many taste buds distributed on other tongue papillae.It is these taste buds that allow us to experience the four main tastes of sweet, sour, bitter and salty.

In fact, the senses of taste and smell often work together when we enjoy delicious food, which is why people feel tasteless when they have a cold.If you don't believe me, try this test: Take a slice of apple and a slice of raw potato, pinch your nose and taste it. Does the difference disappear?

There are many student groups that have done experiments, like a few people in a dorm, where everyone plugs their noses and eats food that smells bad.As a result, all the food has no bad taste, and some people even feel that it tastes better than usual.

It can be seen that the beauty of food does not only seem to come from the tasting of the tongue, but also the smelling function of the nose.Gourmets and wine tasters are often able to discern subtle and complex taste changes, relying on the sense of smell rather than taste.This would explain why a person with chronic sinusitis cannot be a wine taster.Just imagine, how can a person with an insensitive sense of smell be able to tell the difference between various delicious wines?
Regarding taste, there has always been a very interesting saying called "taste map".The so-called taste map refers to the fact that different areas of the tongue are used to experience tastes, and each performs its own duties without interfering with each other.For example, the tip of the tongue is responsible for sweet tastes; the root of the tongue is more sensitive to bitter tastes; the sides of the tongue are mainly responsible for sour and salty tastes.

This statement has been circulating for decades, and people have believed in it.In fact, this is nothing more than a misrepresentation of a scientific article by the communicator.There are no taste zones on the tongue, and the legendary "taste map" is just a beautiful misunderstanding.

In fact, everything starts with an unclear scientific conclusion. In 1901, a German scientist published a paper describing the sensitivity of certain regions of the tongue to different tastes.At that time, this was just an observation of scientists and did not become a clear scientific conclusion.However, the publication of the article made more people understand this point of view, and also made many people mistakenly believe that the human tongue relies on regional division of labor to distinguish taste.Later, an American psychiatrist translated the article into English, and the conclusion continued to be misrepresented until many people were convinced of it.

Recent research has shown that the taste buds on the tongue are not professionals in one field, but craftsmen who are proficient in many skills.They can distinguish multiple flavors at the same time.So, there is no such thing as a "taste map".

Section [-] Deep Processing of Sensation——The World of Perception
When you touch a round object, the feeling tells you: "This is a round object with a smooth surface", and the perception tells you that it is an apple.When you see a colorful painting, your feeling tells you: "There are green, yellow, black, all kinds of colors piled up", and your perception will tell you that it is Van Gogh's "Sunflower".Perception is like the translation of sensations, turning the perceived sound, light, and electricity into meaningful objects, and our world is enriched from then on.

Kenji, an African native, grew up in a tribe called Pygmy near the equator.He has been living in the dense tropical jungle since he was born, and has never been exposed to the culture of Western society, nor does he know the difference between himself and the outside world.The unique growth experience has cultivated Kenji's different perspectives when looking at things.Sometimes, what seems normal to us is a pleasant surprise to him.

In the 20s, when anthropologist Colin Thornbull came to Pygmy to study the African aborigines here, he found Kenki and invited him to ride through the grassland with the research team.

There are hundreds of bison growing on the open grassland, some of them are grazing with their heads down, some are chasing and playing with each other.Faced with this scene, Kenki suddenly felt puzzled, and he asked Thornbull: "What kind of insects are they?" Bison."

As the vehicle travels far beyond the herd, the bison appears as a black spot in the distant sky.This phenomenon caused great confusion to Kenji.Even when Thornbull told him the truth, he still sat there talking to himself, trying to compare those "black dots" with the insects he was familiar with.

After a while, their car drove near the herd of cattle, and the bison grew from black spots to bigger and bigger.At this time, Kenji, who has always been known for being brave and good at fighting, suddenly approached Thornbull, muttering words such as spells.It wasn't until the car stopped beside the buffalo that Kenkie finally saw the true face of the "black spot" that he was completely relieved.However, he also had a new question: "Why did they look so small just now, but now they look so big? Could it be that they use magical magic?"

Before answering Kenji's doubts, let's do a simple demonstration: place your right hand as far away from your body as possible; slowly bring your hand closer to your face until the palm occupies your entire face.

In this demo, you feel as if your hand has grown from its original size until it covers your entire field of vision.Is this kind of doubt similar to the problem Kenji faced?But everyone knows that even though the palm feels bigger, it is still the same size.There was no magical magic, no ghosts, it was just a difference in sensations and perceptions.The problem with Kenji was that he hadn't yet made the distinction between sensation and perception.

People's feelings always rely on what they see and hear to draw conclusions, which will inevitably lead to many mistakes, such as Kenji.As a result, the brain has formed a perception system in evolution to correct possible errors in perception.When your hand is getting closer to your eyes, the image on the retina will become larger and larger, and it will feel as if your hand is getting bigger, and then the sensory system will issue instructions to tell you that it is just an image on the retina. While changing, the actual size of the hand has not changed.

Why would Kenji question such a common-sense question?The reason is that Kenji lived in the virgin forest since he was a child. He has no socialized behavioral reflection, nor does he have prior knowledge to explain what he sees.What the eye sees, he thinks is the true appearance of the thing.The reason we don't make Kenky's mistakes is because of the perceptual processing systems in our brains.

I believe you have already learned in the "Sensation" section that the surrounding world is full of various stimuli, and the first way for human beings to interact with the world is through sensation, that is, to sense the surrounding environment with the eyes, ears, mouth, nose and other organs. Stimulate.However, sometimes it is not enough to rely on the feeling alone, and a process of further processing the feeling is needed-perception.

The human eye can see a piece of white in front of us, and the perception will tell you that it is a vast expanse of white snow; the ear can hear a roar in the sky, and the perception will tell you that it is thunder in the clouds; the nose can smell When you feel an unpleasant smell, your perception will tell you that it is the smell of stinky tofu.

For humans, pure sensation does not make any sense, whether it is light waves, sound waves or various colors.Sensations can only inform us if the brain associates them with something concrete.Thus, humans develop perception systems from infancy, so that all our contact with things becomes perception.

Of course, the external environment is changing at any time, and human perception cannot remain static.Perception will change with the environment, so that people's behavior can adapt to the environment and reduce the occurrence of pain.From the perspective of human evolution, this change is also quite necessary, otherwise, how can humans get to where they are today?

Psychologists have used inverted gaze experiments to demonstrate the relationship between environmental changes and perception.In the experiment, the experimenter asked the subjects to wear a special kind of glasses.The world that the subjects saw in the glasses was upside down, left and right.At first, the subjects wearing glasses were unable to complete simple tasks such as walking, eating, and pulling doorknobs.They reported that in the upside-down world, they felt as if the world was shaking violently, along with headaches and dizziness.

After a few days, the subjects became accustomed to the inverted gaze and were able to perform simple activities of daily life.As the experiment progressed, although the world in the eyes of the subjects was still upside-down, they had learned many daily activities, and the upside-down world had become normal.In a follow-up experiment, the subjects were able to drive a car while wearing the glasses, and one person was even able to fly a plane while wearing the glasses.

Experiments have proved that people's perception is fully capable of interacting with the new visual world, thereby adjusting the original perception habits.This is crucial for humans to quickly adapt to the environment.For people who are engaged in special jobs, such as professional divers, they have to adapt to a world where size, distance, and curvature are all distorted, and they rely entirely on perceptual learning to cope.

Illusion is a special kind of perceptual phenomenon.There are many places where illusions occur in life, and many classic illusions have also been recorded in psychology, such as the classic Robin Cup, Grid Illusion, Ebbings Illusion, Bergendorf Ring Illusion, etc.In these delusions, people are always unsure of the correctness of the perception, and are even puzzled by the unexplainable phenomenon that comes into view.

Putting a mirror in the room will make the room feel larger; the price tags in the mall always have an attractive price of 9.9 yuan, 19.9 yuan or 99.9 yuan.After thinking about it, anyone would think that they are no different from 10 yuan, 20 yuan, or 100 yuan, but people still feel that such prices are very cheap.

The previous hit movie "The Hobbit" can't help but remind people of the previous "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.When watching movies back then, many people would wonder why the hobbit in the movie looks so much shorter?Did you use computer special effects?Of course, in this film series, the role of computer special effects is very powerful.However, the director cleverly used the "Ames cabin" principle in psychology.

"Ames Cabin", also known as the Ames Room Illusion.According to the size constancy of perception, we know that the background of the image provides the observer with the depth of the picture. If the background is removed, the image will have no three-dimensional effect, and there will be no illusion.Thus, Ames provided the wrong background, resulting in two people of the same height, one very tall and one very short.

If you look closely, you will find that the back wall of the Ames hut is not parallel to the observer, but oblique.Since the human eye observes the room through a fixed peephole, the fact that the left side of the room is high and the right side is low will not be detected.Therefore, an ordinary room in the eyes of the observer will create the illusion that a person is as short as a child, and a person is already as tall as the ceiling.

Among the various classic illusions, Ponzo is also the most common one.When it comes to the "Ponzo Illusion", you may not understand it for a while, but if you mention the story of "Two Children Debate the Sun", you must know what is going on.

In ancient times, there were two children. One child believed that the sun was closest to the sun in the morning, because the sun was the biggest at that time;Even Confucius "couldn't solve" such a problem.

In fact, not only the sun, but also the moon or stars appear brighter when they are on the horizon than when they are in the sky.One plausible explanation is the Ponzo illusion.Because there are many contrasting things near the horizon, such as mountains, houses, trees, etc.In this way, people will feel that the sun is much bigger.

Next, let's go back to the special effects of "The Lord of the Rings" and take a look at how the tall Gandalf and the child-like Frodo magically appear on the same screen.The most common approach is to shoot smaller characters like Frodo from a longer distance, and taller characters like Gandalf from close range.

In addition, in "The Lord of the Rings 1", the director once made two sets of rooms with the same background but different sizes in order to shoot the hobbit's hut.Shoot Gandalf in a smaller room and the Hobbit in a larger room.Since the room layout is exactly the same, only through post-editing, a giant as high as the ceiling and a dwarf hobbit appear in the same picture.

Section [-] Art and Magic——The Wonderful Use of Perception

We know that the senses of the human body can convert physical stimuli in the environment into a form that the brain is willing to accept. For example, the eyes convert electromagnetic waves into colors, and the ears convert sound waves into sounds.But this is only the first step in our perception of the world. The process of the brain processing environmental stimuli is always more complicated than we imagined.Because of this, even the perception that can recognize and recognize the sensation sometimes inevitably makes mistakes.

In daily life, when we question a certain matter, we often say "hearing is believing, seeing is believing", thinking that the way to crack rumors is to see with our own eyes.However, have you ever considered that in some cases, even what your eyes see is not necessarily true, or that your eyes can deceive you?
There once was a well-trained and experienced psychologist named Richard.Unfortunately, Richard later suffered brain damage that altered his perception of the world.

Overall, Richard's brain centers were unaffected, but his overall ability to sense information was discordant.When several people appeared in his field of vision at the same time, he could only see one of them. Sometimes, he would also see a person as split, such as the head separated from the body.

To see the pieces as a whole, Richard may have needed a perceptual "glue" that holds the disjointed pictures together the way we do jigsaw puzzles.For example, when a person who has been seen as fragments walks by in front of him, he needs to remind himself in order to put the fragmentary parts together and perceive him as a complete person.

Once this perceptual "glue" fails, Richard still makes mistakes.For example, people wearing clothes of the same color in the crowd will be fused together by his eyes; things that are separated from each other but have similar colors will also be seen as a whole by him, such as bananas, pears, and lemons put together.

It can be inferred from Richard's story that what we feel is often not directly manifested.Things that form a connection with each other often need to be processed by the brain and reflected after they become complete.Just like collaging a bunch of scattered patterns, the scattered parts must first be put together to present a complete image at the end.

The blank space technique used in traditional Chinese painting applies exactly this principle.To leave blank is to leave a blank space in the painting.Of course, white is not without, nor is it the author's arbitrary creation, but a way to create artistic conception.Just like Qi Baishi's painting of shrimp, he has never drawn water next to the shrimp, as long as he leaves a few blank spaces on the paper, he can intuitively show the shrimp swimming in the water.In Zhang Ling's "Calling Immortals", he also cleverly used the blank space of the picture to create a poetic atmosphere of cool and bright moon on the blank scroll.

In Western paintings, painters like to use light, perspective and other techniques to make people perceive the broken pieces as a whole.In Dali's works, "The Slave Market and the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire" applies this principle appropriately, showing the ambiguity of art.

People tend to see incomplete figures as complete and tend to group similar objects together.Therefore, when the human eye sees a target, the characteristics of the target determine where the brain will focus, and at the same time, individual expectations and expectations will also be involved.As a result, the ambiguity of perception appears.This also explains why people can be deceived by their own eyes.

So how does the brain work when we see pictures made up of fragments, or ambiguous patterns that blur our perception?At present, people are more inclined to believe this statement: when a person sees a picture, the brain processes the received visual information at different levels at the same time.However, the research of Oliva and Schoenz proved that there is a time lag between different processes.

The study found that the brain first processes rough information, such as the size and overall features of the picture, before looking at the edges and details of the picture.Experiments have shown that it only takes 50 milliseconds to process rough features, but 100 milliseconds to record details.Just like a person standing in Central Park in New York, the first thing he sees must be the buildings on the street, not the pedestrians walking on the street.

Liu Qian, a magician from Taiwan, became a smash hit with his superb magic skills.As the saying goes, a big tree attracts the wind.Maybe it's because Liu Qian's fame is too high and his peers are jealous, or maybe it's because the audience's curiosity is too strong. After only a few hours after his performance, all kinds of revealing posts appear on major online forums and post bars. A well-known writer threatened in his blog: "Liu Qian brought a scam gang and put on a play."

When magic became popular among young people, and even became a way of people's leisure and entertainment, people couldn't help asking, is magic really a lie?Are all magicians liars?
As a professional magician, Liu Qian once gave a speech called "The Art of Deceiving People" at Beijing Film Academy.After the speech, the media once asked him: "Why is the title of the speech called "The Performing Art of Deception"?" Liu Qian said frankly: "Actually, magicians and movie actors are all liars, because they are trying to make people feel good. The audience believes that the characters or performances presented in front of them are real. The so-called 'acting' is an art of deception."

Now that the magician himself has admitted that magic itself is a kind of deception, we, the spectators, have to admit this fact too.However, compared to a liar who aims to defraud money, a magician just uses a blinding technique to create a perceptual illusion.

The process of a magic show is more like a reciprocal process. The magician completes the show and the audience is entertained.On the other hand, those decipherers who intercept pictures on the Internet and draw prop structure diagrams, don’t they study it because they are interested, and want to know how magic works?

Moreover, in all the magic tricks in the world, especially those magical and undecipherable magic tricks, magicians have skillfully used the laws of psychology, including misleading, suggestion, illusion and other psychological phenomena.Some classic magic tricks are still unsolvable, which shows that the performers have unique techniques and good intentions.

In 1976, magician David Baglas performed a magical trick called "any card at any number".For decades, due to its mysterious technique, no one has been able to crack it so far, so people call this magic "Baglas effect".Because the magician himself kept this technology secret, some people doubted that this magical magic did not exist, and some even thought it was a rumor, a wrong report, or an elaborate hoax.

Due to the long history and technical problems at the time, Baglas's performance was not recorded. Therefore, people in later generations can only guess the mystery through the performance process.In fact, the props of the "Baglas effect" are very simple - a deck of playing cards, and the performance process is also very simple. It is the magic with the least operation in the history of magic, and at the same time it produces a magical effect.

However, the Baglas effect must follow four very strict standards: First, the playing cards need to be displayed before the performance to prove that there are no duplicate cards.The second is for an audience member to say a card arbitrarily, such as the J of clubs; of course, this audience is not a child.The third is for another audience to say a number arbitrarily, from 1 to 52, any one is fine, such as 22; the same premise, this person is not a babysitter.In the end, the magician will invite the No.3 audience to count the cards, and finally found the Jack of Clubs at the 22nd card position.An important part of the whole performance is that the performers do not touch the cards.

Of course, while such a miraculous technique is amazing, it has also attracted many voices of doubt.Some people think that the playing cards used on the scene were arranged in advance by the magician, while others exaggeratedly believe that the whole audience is just a babysitter brought by the magician.Baglas chose silence at first, but later he decided to fight back with action.When those who questioned him watched the live performance, a series of doubts disappeared.Afterwards, no one doubted the authenticity of the performance except for surprise.

Today, there are only two videos of magic similar to the "Baglas Effect", one from Liu Qian's performance, and the other recorded by American TV.In contrast, the American part is closer to the original effect, because Liu Qian switched the playing cards several times during the performance.

Although Baglas refused to disclose the secrets behind the magic, we can also guess that the principle of this effect must come from psychology.The performer will use suggestive language or actions to induce the audience to choose the card that the performer wants to show.

In the "Feelings" section, we mentioned the "turning a blind eye" experiment designed by psychologist Daniel Simon.In fact, in addition to moving the experiment to the door of the laboratory, Simon also added "big material" to a basketball video.

The experimenter invited the subjects to watch a video of a basketball game.The task of the subjects was to count the number of passes made by three of them.Of course, this is not the real purpose of the experimenters.In the middle of the video, an actor dressed as a gorilla appeared in the middle of the basketball court. He stayed for a moment and made a chest-beating action before leaving.After watching the video, the experimenter counted the subjects, and found that half of the subjects did not find the gorilla in the video.

Therefore, psychologists believe that when people pay full attention to a target, they will automatically ignore the environment around the target, so as to save resources for paying attention to the target, and as a result, the phenomenon of "turning a blind eye" appears.The magician uses this feature of perceptual attention to "deceive" the audience.

If you're interested in rediscovering videos of Liu Qian or any other magician performing, a closer look reveals that the magician is constantly talking or moving throughout the performance.While creating a relaxed atmosphere, he lowered the audience's defensiveness.At the same time, actions and words become new stimuli, such as finger movement, a funny joke, so as to attract the attention of the audience elsewhere, and at this time, his magic moves can be completed quietly.

In addition, magicians also like to use hints to influence the audience's choices.Before playing card magic begins, magicians are used to showing the audience a new set of playing cards to prove that they are not suspected of cheating.Then, the magician will say to any audience: "Please choose a card at random, remember it, but don't tell me."

Thus, the spectator really chooses a card according to free will.In fact, most viewers will choose the card the magician is going to show because it has appeared more than ten times in the show just now.The "free will" that the audience thinks is just the result of being unconsciously influenced by suggestion.

(End of this chapter)