How the brain works: Illusions

Hi, I am Jerry Andres. I am very interested in how our human brains work and I am standing inside what I call Box Impossible and if you will look, maybe you will see that there seem to be something wrong with it. Here is a picture of just an ordinary fluffy clouds and now I am going to spin this trizonal space warper and I am going to have you stare right at the center of it for 20 seconds, you keep staring right at the center of this trizonal space warp! Now, we are going to show you that still cloud picture again and you will see that it looks like it is boiling. There is nothing moving about it all, it just looks like it is boiling because you have been staring at the space warper disk. Got it figured out yet? Here is another one. This represents two large nuts, when I move them, they look like they are moving independently, now I have a straight tube here and I am going to push this straight tube through this nut and then you will see that it looks like it has to bend in the middle to go through the other one. See, the straight tube looks like it is bent in order to go through the other one, here again, your wonderful brain has just shown you something different than what it really is. This is made out of plastic and you are looking at the inside of this! Our wonderful brain interprets something different than it actually is, but it does not mean that has made a mistake, it took the information it had and it did its best job. Here, watch this! Look, it is not a box at all! I was just standing in the corner of this framework and you could see it has no resemblance to a box at all and your wonderful brain interpreted that picture on your retina as a box!

Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services