So when you bring the picture near, the sharp features become more visible, masking the coarse features. As a result, the face on the right looks like it is frowning and the one on the left, like it is relaxed. You simply do not notice the opposite emotions that the low spatial frequencies convey. Then, when you move the page farther away, your visual system is no longer able to resolve the fine details. So the expression conveyed by these fine features disappears, and the expression conveyed by low frequencies is unmasked and perceived.
The experiment shows vividly an idea originally postulated by Fergus Campbell and John Robson of the University of Cambridge: information from different spatial scales is extracted in parallel by various neural channels, which have wide ranges of receptive field sizes. (The receptive field of a visual neuron is the part of the visual field and corresponding tiny patch of retina to which a stimulus needs to be presented to activate it.) It also shows that the channels do not work in isolation from one another. Rather they interact in interesting ways (for example, the sharp edges picked up by small receptive fields mask the blurred large-scale variations signaled by large receptive fields).
Honest Abe
Experiments of this kind go back to the early 1960s, when Leon Harmon, then working at Bell Laboratories, devised the famous Abraham Lincoln effect. Harmon produced the picture of Honest Abe by taking a regular picture and digitizing it into coarse pixels (picture elements). Even when viewed close-up, there is enough information in the blocky brightness variations to recognize Lincoln. But these data, as we noted already, are masked by the sharp edges of the pixels. When you move far away from the photograph or squint, the image blurs, eliminating the sharp edges. Presto! Lincoln becomes instantly recognizable. The great artist Salvador Dalí was sufficiently inspired by this illusion to use it as a basis for his paintings, an unusual juxtaposition of art and science.
Mysterious Mona Lisa
Finally, consider the mysterious smile of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. Philosophers and art historians who specialize in aesthetics often refer to her expression as “enigmatic” or “elusive,” mainly because they do not understand it. Indeed, we wonder whether they prefer not to understand it, because they seem to resent any attempts to explain it scientifically, apparently for fear that such analysis might detract from its beauty.
But recently neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone of Harvard Medical School made an intriguing observation; she cracked the da Vinci code, you might say. She noticed that when she looked directly at Mona Lisa’s mouth, the smile was not apparent (quite a disappointment). Yet as she moved her gaze away from the mouth, the smile appeared, beckoning her eyes back. Looking again at the mouth, she saw that the smile disappeared again. In fact, she noted, the elusive smile can be seen only when you look away from the mouth. You have to attend to it out of the corner of your eye, rather than fixating on it directly. Because of the unique shading (placement of low spatial frequencies) at the corners of the mouth, a smile is perceived only when the low spatial frequencies are dominant—that is, when you look indirectly at the masterpiece.
To confirm this notion, she performed a low-pass filtering and a high-pass filtering of the Mona Lisa. Notice that with the low-pass (blurred) image the smile is more obvious than in the original—it can be seen even if you look directly at the mouth. With the high-pass (outlinelike) image, however, no smile is apparent, even if you look away from the mouth. Putting these two images back together restores the original masterpiece and the elusive nature of the smile. As with the changing faces, we can now better appreciate what Leonardo seems to have stumbled on and fallen in love with—a portrait that seems alive because its fleeting expression (thanks to quirks of our visual system) perpetually tantalizes the viewer.
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7 Comments
Add CommentI can't believe you mentioned the stupid fallacy about our eyes seeing upside down and therefore it is some sort of miracle that we see right side up. Of course the images are upside down on our retinas - that's how lenses work. However, in effect, our brains are upside down - or more correctly they are "wired up" to perceive correctly. There is no miracle or mystery here!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, an artist who has severe astigmatism will see his canvas with the same distortion that he sees everything else and would have to paint objects in normal proportions to see them on the canvas as distorted as they "normally" appear to be.
"But surely this idea is absurd. If it were true, then we should all be drawing the world upside down, because the retinal image is upside down!"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a perfect example of flawed analysis.
Aspect distortion is clearly different - and would affect an image whether or not it was "upside down."
I have about 1.5 to 1.75 diopters of correction for my astigmatism on vertical cylindrical axes. When looking at a blank TV screen across the room while lying down gives the horizontal 4:3 screen the appearance of a vertical 16:9 screen. I was flabbergasted 20 years ago at the not so subtle discovery.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease note that El Greco's figures appear in correct perspective when viewed from their angles of display. The master designed his compositions to account for relative positions of painting and viewer. The effect is lost when his paintings are removed from the placements for which they were conceived for display in other contexts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am cross-eyed, not astigmatic, but I experience vision in a way that could not be anticipated by any arm-chair thinker merely thinking about it. --Changing glasses, I experience a few moments of seeing two of everything, then I readjust and only see one of everything again. This is true even though the separate images my physical eyes receive must differ much more greatly than is the norm: depth perception is impossible for me. Also, with a mental effort, I can purposely see two of everything, then when I want switch back to one. Through anecdotal evidence (not the scientific method but better than the zero evidence flaunted by some here), I believe those of us with my same vision problem experience vision in unforeseeably different ways. --No one can merely think his way into anyone else's visual field. Yet many commenters seem sadly (or ridiculously) credulous toward the excreta of their own baseless mentations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI knew Mona Lisa... she didn't talk much. WHAT A FREAK!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisplease do not expense any of your wisdom.
and don't deny your jealousy towards me
Go to the heading ANGRY AND CALM. In the first paragraph you discuss two figures shown in "a"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere's "a"? No picture came through.