Vision
isn't always WYSIWYG
In English, there are 2 essential words
to express the faculty and the act of seeing : 1) see, 2)
view. The etymological sense of the words see and view are “follow
something with the eyes” (from the indo-european seq)
and “have learnt” (from the indo-european weid).
So, for our ancestors an image is something to shape with the
eyes (follow with the eye) and an information taken from the
real world (having learnt from this visual perception).
Unfortunately
(or fortunately?), seeing isn’t some kind of direct perception
of reality. Actually our brain is constantly interpreting and
giving structure to the initial visual input from our eyes.
If this was not the case, we wouldn’t see colors and we
probably would see the world upside down! Another interesting
everyday paradox of our vision is that we don’t see the
edges of our visual field! In fact, we should see black zones
outside of our visual field, but our brain cancels out these
zones with a smooth fade-out effect. In the following webpages
we have included classic and new optical illusions that will
delight children and grown-ups as well as inquisitive minds
in search of solid, accessible material on this amazing subject.
The
Authors
Gianni A. Sarcone and Marie J.
Waeber, designers and writers, are specialists in creative learning.
They create and invent educational manipulatives and thinking
games which help teach mathematics, visual and plastic arts.
Their maxim is: “be curious first!” (click here to
get more info about the authors)
Italy
| contact@archimedes-lab.org
