An Optical Illusion and Psychosis

In an earlier posting we talked about the conclusion that the brain/mind creates our perceptions; an important insight that is accepted in western neuroscience and in eastern contemplative traditions.

Here is the link to the previous posting on this blog:
http://comingbacktoreality.blogspot.com/2009/01/constructing-reality.html

Optical illusions are an entertaining way to literally ‘see’ that what we see is not what is actually there. Instead, we tend to impose our preconceptions on the ‘data’ that has been presented to the brain by the sensory neurons and create perceptions that match our past experiences.

A posting on the website “Wired Science” provides an interesting example of such an optical illusion. The context is that in a recent research study people who had a diagnosis of schizophrenia actually were not able to see a particular optical illusion. They saw the visual object as it actually was while the ‘healthy controls’ experienced an optical illusion that fundamentally misinterpreted the actual visual object.

So, this is an interesting twist; people with psychosis see a visual object as it actually is, while people without psychosis are fooled.

The link to the Wired Science blog is as follows:

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/schizoillusion.html

The optical illusion is demonstrated with a video that is available within the Wired Science blog.