THE TRICK IS TO FIND THE MAN IN THE COFFEE BEANS:
This is bizarre - after you find the guy - it's so obvious.
Once you find him - it's embarrassing, and you think,
'Why didn't I see him immediately?'
How can we explain this from a Sensation & Perception perspective, based on what we have been learning from class?
I seriously was staring at this for a good minute, and then when I saw the man's face, it literally made me move back, kind of creepy actually. I was thinking it was more like one of the pictures you have to stare at forever until you see say a dinosaur in the background and what not. Based on our sensation and perceptions we are used to illusions, but our mind tricks us so easily that we do not see things right away, but after we have glared at something for as long as it takes us to realize what it is that we are suppose to be seeing. Without you telling us that there was a man in the picture, I wouldn't of known what to look for and either would be brain.
Our brain's job is to resolve ambiguity in what we see. Our brain is going to look for the easiest and most common picture that is available. Therefore, when we look at this picture we're going to see coffee beans because then there is no confusion. Without you telling us there was a man hidden in the coffee beans our visual system wouldn't work to find it because it is not expected.
This is like the video with the gorilla in it. Once we saw the gorilla walk into the picture it was completley obvious and almost rediculous that we didn't see the gorilla in the first place! We aren't able to scan right away and see things that should normally stick out.