Psychology Facts

▲ Perceptual Illusions ▲

》Perceptual illusion occurs when a stimulus is perceived inaccurately. It can equally be explained as a sensory distortion in scientific parlance.

》We have sensory receptors in our brain that detect light, sound, temperature, etc., and most of these receptors are on the surface of our bodies (i.e. eyes, ears, mouth, etc.). There are, however, internal receptors such as those that register pain. Regardless of the type, each receptor is responsible for detecting its own form of energy which is used to transmit signals to the brain. When the brain receives these signals, most of the time it interprets the signals correctly, but when it doesn't, that is what we call a sensory illusion.

》Optical illusions typically work by using certain visual tricks that exploit certain assumptions within human perception -- in essence, the image itself is the illusion. A perceptual illusion, however, is not an optical phenomenon, but rather a cognitive one.

》The illusion occurs in the way your brain processes the visual data you transmit to your brain. a perceptual illusion occurs when any of the sense organs "transmit misleading information to the brain." An example of a sensory form of perceptual illusion is the phenomenon of "phantom limbs," in which a person who has had a limb amputated claims to retain feeling, including pain, in the limb that is no longer there.

》Perceptual illusions can also be auditory. One of the most striking is the "phantom words" illusion. This can be heard in an audio recording that features repeated words and phrases that overlap each other, placed in different auditory spaces within different regions of the stereo space. As you listen, you can pick out specific phrases, none of which are actually there. In fact, your brain is attempting to make sense of what is essentially meaningless noise, and fills in what's necessary to make sense of the sounds. (Like Yanny V. Loral. Green needle V. Brainstorm)