Comments on: Optical Illusions Compilation (video)

By: Steve SugoTV

Steve SugoTV — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:09:28 +0000

this video made by Mauro Vecchi, an italian videomaker, is the winning entry for a contest made by QOOB tv. here you can find the original context
http://it.qoob.tv/video/clip_view.asp?id=3564

By: mac-d

mac-d — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:22:13 +0000

Nevermind, I solved the puzzle =)
For those of you interested in what song was playing in the background, it's Golden Cage by Whitest Boy Alive.

By: mac-d

mac-d — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:19:56 +0000

Connor, are you sure it's "burning"? It's erlend oye singing, but i've never heard that song... maybe it's a different version.

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:21:46 +0000

The question is: can you read disemvoweled text as fast as scrambled one?

By: Cath

Cath — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 05:54:51 +0000

My eyes were also stuck on the union jack until the very end too!

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 03:11:05 +0000

I can read the scrambled text just as fast as if I read it without being scrambled. It is fairly simple imo and is not that hard. Its only words which I never heard of that gets me. As for the color and the color name I am extremely slow at.

By: Jess

Jess — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:27:18 +0000

Willo, that's the whole point. Over time, we become so familiar with words that we no longer need to read every letter.
The stroop test (say the word "green" when it iw written in red...) is not an optical illusion, rather a cognitive rivalry between the visual and language areas of our brain, the language areas being more automatic - leading us to be more likely to say the name of the word than the colour it is written in.

By: KB

KB — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:43:24 +0000

Sure it's not as quick as reading correctly spelled words, but it's still pretty amazing that we can recognize the words without decoding them one by one.

Maybe I'm just easily impressed.

By: ExNoctem

ExNoctem — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:08:06 +0000

To Willo: Isn't that the point? The phenomenon is that you can read it without it being spelled correctly - to read it correctly, you need to be acquainted with the word from prior experience. Since English is not a phonetic language, the pronunciation of a letter in one word may be completely different than that of an another word. Example: through, ought, cough, burrough, etc.

Other than the Moebius strip thing being wrong (it can exist), this is a pretty nifty video. Thanks neatorama!

By: Willo the Wisp

Willo the Wisp — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 20:46:41 +0000

That thing about the firls and last letters being in the right place is baloney, and I'm sick of seeing it. It doesn't work unless you know what the words really are through years of reading correctly spelled words. Also, it's not as quick to read as they say... it might work on a short piece of text, but can you imagine reading a whole novel written like that? You'd find it an awful chore. Even on a short text it takes some decoding.

By: GeekAlerts

GeekAlerts — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 20:42:07 +0000

Yes, I see that now - it makes my skin crawl.

By: DrJones

DrJones — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:25:35 +0000

Hey, most of your post is spelled wrong.

By: connor

connor — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:22:48 +0000

"Screw the illusions - who’s that singin’???"

whitest boy alive - burning

By: Dianne

Dianne — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:15:11 +0000

Screw the illusions - who's that singin'???

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 18:12:13 +0000

Ummm, you can to have a mobius strip in 3 dimensions. Also, the strip portrayed in the video is not one, as the ball would have travelled around the whole strip on both "sides" (a mobius strip only has one side) before returning to tit's starting point.

Other than that, a pretty neat video.

By: frenki

frenki — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:23:29 +0000

union jack stuck with till the end. weird.

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 15:58:34 +0000

The union jack one and the crawling skin one are my favourites