Powerful visual illusions | Al Seckel

We're going to talk -- my -- a new lecture, just

for TED -- and I'm going show you some illusions

that we've created for TED, and I'm going to try

to relate this to happiness. What I was thinking

about with happiness is, what gives happiness --

or happiness, which I equate with joy in my

particular area, and I think there's something very

fundamental. And I was thinking about this. And

it's in terms of both illusions and movies that we

go see and jokes and magic shows is that there's

something about these things where our

expectations are violated in some sort of pleasing

way. You go see a movie. And it has an unexpected

twist -- something that you didn't expect -- and

you find a joyful experience. You look at those

sort of illusions in my book and it's not as what

you'd expect. And there's something joyful about

it. And it's the same thing with jokes and all

these sorts of things. So, what I'm going to try

and do in my lecture is go a little bit further

and see if I can violate your expectations in a

pleasing way. I mean, sometimes expectations that

are violated are not pleasant, but I'm going to try

to do it in a pleasant way, in a very primal way,

so I can make the audience here happy.

So I'm going to show you some ways that we can

violate your expectations. First of all, I want to

show you the particular illusion here. I want you

first of all when it pops up on the screen to

notice that the two holes are perpendicular to

each other. These are all perceptual tricks. These

are real objects that I'm going to show you. Now

I'm going to show you how it is done. I've looped

the film here so you can get a very interesting

experience. I want you to see how this illusion is

constructed, and it's going to rotate so you see

that it's inside out. Now watch, as it rotates

back, how quickly your perception snaps. OK now.

Watch it as it rotates back again. And this is a very

bright audience, all right? See if you can stop it

from happening, even though you know 100 percent it's

true that -- bam! You can't undo it. What does

that tell you about yourselves? We're going to do

it again. No doubt about it. See if you can stop

it from happening. No. It's difficult.

And we can violate your expectations in a whole

variety of ways about representation, about shape,

about color and so forth and it's very primal. And

it's an interesting question to ponder, why these

things -- we find these things joyful. Why would

we find them joyful? So, here's something that

Lionel did a while ago. I like these sort of

little things like this.

Again, this is not an optical trick. This is what

you would see. In other words, it's not a camera

cut. It's a perceptual trick.

OK. We can violate your expectations about

shape.

We can violate your expectations on representation

-- what an image represents. What do you see here?

How many of you here see dolphins? Raise your hand

if you see dolphins. OK, those people who raised

their hands, afterwards, the rest of the audience,

go talk to them, all right? Actually, this is the

best example of priming by experience that I know.

If you are a child under the age of 10 who

haven't been ruined yet, you will look at this

image and see dolphins. Now, some of you adults

here are saying, "What dolphins? What dolphins?"

But in fact, if you reversed the figure ground --

in other words, the dark areas here -- I forgot to

ask for a pointer -- but if you reverse it, you'll

see a whole series of little dolphins. By the way,

if you're also a student at CalTech -- they also

tend to just see the dolphins. It's based on

experience.

Now, something like this can be used because this

is after all talk about design, too. This was

done by Saatchi and Saatchi, and they actually got

away with this ad in Australia. So, if you look at

this ad for beer, all those people are in sort of

provocative positions. But they got it passed, and

actually won the Clio awards, so it's funny how you can do

these things.

Remember that sort of, um. This is the joke I did

when the Florida ballot was going around. You

know, count the dots for Gore; count the dots for

Bush; count 'em again ...

You can violate your expectations about

experience. Here is an outside water fountain that

I created with some friends of mine, but you can

stop the water in drops and -- actually make all

the drops levitate. This is something we're

building for, you know, amusement parks and that

kind of stuff.

Now let's take a static image. Can you see this?

Do you see the middle section moving down and the

outer sections moving up? It's completely static.

It's a static image. How many people see this

illusion? It's completely static.

Right. Now, when -- it's interesting that when we

look at an image we see, you know, color, depth,

texture. And you can look at this whole scene and

analyze it. You can see the woman is in closer than

the wall and so forth. But the whole thing is

actually flat. It's painted. It's trompe l'oeil.

And it was such a good trompe l'oeil that people

got irritated when they tried to talk to the

woman and she wouldn't respond.

Now, you can make design mistakes. Like this

building in New York. So that when you see it from

this side, it looks like the balconies tilt up,

and when you walk around to the other side it

looks like the balconies go down. So there are

cases where you have mistakes in design that

incorporate illusions.

Or, you take this particular un-retouched

photograph. Now, interestingly enough, I get a lot

of emails from people who say, "Is there any

perceptual difference between males and females?"

And I really say, "No." I mean, women can navigate

through the world just as well as males can -- and

why wouldn't they? However, this is the one

illusion that women can consistently do better

than males: in matching which head because they

rely on fashion cues. They can match the hat.

Okay, now getting to a part -- I want to show

design in illusions. I believe that the first

example of illusions being used purposely was by

da Vinci in this anamorphic image of an eye. So

that when you saw from one little angle was like

this. And this little technique got popular in the

16th century and the 17th century to disguise

hidden meanings, where you could flip the image and

see it from one little point of view like this.

But these are early incorporations of illusions

brought to -- sort of high point with Hans

Holbein's "Ambassadors." And Hans Holbein worked

for Henry VIII. This was hung on a wall where you

could walk down from the stair and you can see

this hidden skull.

All right, now I'm going to show you some

designers who work with illusions to give that

element of surprise. One of my favorites is Scott

Kim. I worked with Scott to create some illusions

for TED that I hope you will enjoy. We have one

here on TED and happiness.

OK now. Arthur [Ganson] hasn't talked yet, but his is

going to be a delightful talk and he has some of

his really fantastic machines outside. And so, we

-- Scott created this wonderful tribute to Arthur

Ganson.

Well, there's analog and digital. Thought that

was appropriate here.

And figure goes to ground.

And for the musicians.

And of course, since happiness -- we want "joy to the

world."

Now, another great designer -- he's very well

known in Japan -- Shigeo Fukuda. And he just

builds some fantastic things. This is simply

amazing. This is a pile of junk that when you view

it from one particular angle, you see its

reflection in the mirror as a perfect piano.

Pianist transforms to violinist.

This is really wild. This assemblage of forks,

knives and spoons and various cutlery, welded

together. It gives a shadow of a motorcycle. You learn

something in the sort of thing that I do, which

is there are people out there with a lot of time

on their hands.

Ken Knowlton does wonderful composite images, like

creating Jacques Cousteau out of seashells --

un-retouched seashells, but just by rearranging

them. He did Einstein out of dice because, after

all, Einstein said, "God does not play dice with

the universe." Bert Herzog out of un-retouched

keyboards. Will Shortz, crossword puzzle. John

Cederquist does these wonderful trompe l'oeil

cabinets.

Now, I'm going to skip ahead since I'm sort of running

[behind]. I want to show you quickly what I've

created, some new type of illusions. I've done

something with taking the Pixar-type illusions. So

you see these kids the same size here, running

down the hall. The two table tops of the same size.

They're looking out two directions at once. You

have a larger piece fitting in with a smaller. And

that's something for you to think about, all

right? So you see larger pieces fitting in within

smaller pieces here. Does everyone see that? Which

is impossible. You can see the two kids are

looking out simultaneously out of two different

directions at once. Now can you believe these two

table tops are the same size and shape? They are.

So, if you measured them, they would be. And as I say,

those two figures are identical in size and shape.

And it's interesting, by doing this in this sort

of rendered fashion, how much stronger the

illusions are. Any case, I hope this has brought

you a little joy and happiness, and if you're

interested in seeing more cool effects, see me

outside. I'd be happy to show you lots of things.