How do our eyes decieve us? How does this relate to change blindness? How do our expectations drive our perceptual processes? Hint - Count the number of legs...
More photos - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/19/funniest-photoshop-fails_n_731037.html
Well at first glance we see a woman on a surfboard. That is the message our brain stores, but when we analyze it we realize she is not even in water, and one leg is missing. It does not seem odd to us at first because our brain just takes in what is relevant. According to the theory of constructive perception the position of the woman could help our brain to assume that her other leg is just symmetrically placed directly behind the other one, filling in missing information. A proponent of the theory of direct perception might argue that we do not notice that the leg is missing because we our brain simply does not need the information to complete the message "a woman on a surfboard". With all the stimulation in the picture there is no need for further processing of information so why absorb it? I this theory falls short because it claims that simple perceptions like this require no experience, but in my opinion every perception is in the context of previous experiences. All our sense are sent to an area in the limbic system, which is also highly correlated with memory. Without prior knowledge of anything how do we know that is a woman, or a person at all, not to mention the surf board. Our instant perceptions are most definitely influenced by cognitive elements such as prior experiences.
of course gestalt also explains the phenomena, stating that we perceive the whole before analyzing individual parts, sort of backwards of the 6 blind men who feel that elephant.
This reminds me of those electronic games at bars, the ones that show side by side images of for instance a woman washing a car on a sunny summer day. The object of the game is to look at the closely related scenes and point out the not so obvious differences between the two. One woman may have an earring missing or a hub cap from the car might not be there. Upon first glance, it's difficult to point out the differences especially when they're so minor and vague. Our brain assumes all the pieces are there when in actuality they aren't.
I put a youtube link to a video like this in my web divergence activity this week. Until we are told what to look for, we do not see such a discrete omission. Selective attention comes into the game when we are told to look at the leg.
This is really interesting to me, I have seen a lot of these. Sometimes I really think that it was a photoshop mistake, but this one does not seem to be to me. I have discussed ads in many other classes, and the point of an ad is to grab your attention. A magazine ad has like 2 seconds to catch your attention before you turn the page, and a lot of times they will do tricks like this to arouse your interest. You aren't aware that you saw it, but you saw it. You are more likely to remember this ad because even though you didn't maybe see it on the suface your brain probably automatically processed that it saw something weird with the picture.
I also find the subliminal advertising ads really interesting too.. like when they put the word sex into the background of an object.
The first thing I noticed after taking a look at the picture then reading the first couple comments is that people seemed to notice the missing leg first. I didn't notice the leg until after someone had mentioned it. What I noticed first was that she was sitting on a narrow cylinder. I don't see snowboards/surfboards often enough to justify jumping to that conclusion so at first glance it looked to me as if she was sitting on a narrow surface. AFTER examining the picture I made the conscious awareness of a missing leg. I think part of the reason I didn't notice that first was because I had expectations of what I was going to see and my mind just filled in the blanks for me.