Mind & BrainFebruary 12, 2009
Optical Illusions and the Illusion of Love
How do we fool thee? Let us count the ways--that illusions play with our hearts and minds
Stories by Stephen L. Macknik
Stephen L. Macknik is a professor of opthalmology, neurology, and physiology and pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Along with Susana Martinez-Conde and Sandra Blakeslee, he is author of the Prisma Prize-winning Sleights of Mind. Their forthcoming book, Champions of Illusion, will be published by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Mind & BrainJanuary 21, 2009
Sculpting the Impossible: Solid Renditions of Visual Illusions
Artists find mind-bending ways to bring visual illusions called impossible figures into three-dimensional reality.
Mind & BrainDecember 1, 2008
Magic and the Brain: How Magicians
Magicians have been testing and exploiting the limits of cognition and attention for hundreds of years. Neuroscientists are just beginning to catch up
Mind & BrainNovember 18, 2008
Art as Visual Research: 12 Examples of Kinetic Illusions in Op Art
Art and neuroscience combine in creating fascinating examples of illusory motion
Mind & BrainOctober 21, 2008
Illusions: Motion from Brightness
How dynamic changes in brightness cause you to see movement where there isn't any
Mind & BrainOctober 1, 2008
A Perspective on 3-D Illusions
Paint and architectural illusions provide clues to how your brain reconstructs 3-D images
Mind & BrainAugust 26, 2008
Illusions: The Eyes Have It
Eye gaze is critically important to humans, as social primates. Maybe that's why illusions involving eyes are so compelling.
Mind & BrainJuly 8, 2008
A Perspective on 3-D Visual Illusions
What the Leaning Tower and related illusions reveal about how your brain reconstructs 3-D images.
Mind & BrainMay 28, 2008
The Neuroscience of Illusion
How tricking the eye reveals the inner workings of the brain
Mind & BrainAugust 1, 2007
Windows on the Mind
Once scorned as nervous tics, certain tiny, unconscious flicks of the eyes now turn out to underpin much of our ability to see. These movements may even re?veal subliminal thoughts