Watch This!
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Optical Illusion
What would you say if we told you these two boxes were the exact same shade of gray? Can you see it? Gradients and shadows give your brain clues based on your past experiences with shadows. But shadows can lie to you.
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Illusion of Color and Shadow
A cube is covered in blocks of color, but one side is painted to look as if it were in shadow. It is not. Because of this, two blocks appear to be different shades of brown, but are, in fact, the same color.
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Visual Cortex
How does visual perception work? Light, reflected by objects, is converted by your eyes into an electrical signal, which travels down a neurological pathway, called the optic nerve, to a region in the back of your brain. This region, called the visual cortex, takes the image and cross-references it with memory of past experiences stored throughout your brain, to try to identify the object.
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The Rubber Hand Illusion
In this illusion, a rubber hand replaces a person's real hand, which is hidden from view. To link the brain to the rubber hand, our expert brushes both the real hand and the rubber hand simultaneously, linking the person's physical sensation with what they see. Suddenly, the rubber hand gets smashed with a hammer! Does the person feel pain?
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The Way She Moves
Actors in a Los Angeles motion capture studio wear body suits equipped with dot sensors. Their motion is being captured by specialists investigating the way the human brain responds to movement.
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Huh?
Why is this guy's drink pouring sideways? Surprise! This is actually a set bolted down and turned sideways.
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F is For Fail
Surprisingly, when they are not highlighted in orange, the letters "F" in this sign are difficult for people to count. Why would that be? Many people forget to count the "F" in the word "of" because, when spoken, it has a "V" sound.
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Auditory Cortex
Located in a region of your brain's temporal lobe, the auditory cortex receives electrical signals from your inner ear and works with surrounding areas of the brain to search the raw electrical signals for patterns that resemble familiar sounds. This is how your brain processes sound.
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What It Looks Like
"Language is really magical," says psychology professor Dr. Lera Boroditsky. "Just by creating pressure waves in the air, by moving my mouth and exhaling, I can put really precise thoughts in people’s minds. I can say things like, 'Imagine an ovulating zebra riding on the back of a rhinoceros while solving differential equations.' Now that’s amazing that I can put that thought in your mind, just by making pressure waves in the air."
