'Curve ball' wins international illusion contest

[The Straight Story]

'Curve ball' wins international illusion contest

At the fifth annual international Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest, first place went to a mind-boggling entry called "The Break of the Curve Ball." The entry submitted from a team of academics led by an American University professor, challenges the human visual system and brain to predict the movement of a spinning disk. The illusion is available at www.illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com.

The popular illusion contest is led by two visual neuroscientists at Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde and Dr. Stephen Macknik launched the contest five years ago as part of their ongoing research into the human brain's relationship to visual perception.

"As scientists and medical researchers, we learn from these visual illusions every year. The knowledge that we will eventually get from studying the 'Curve Ball' illusion may be applied throughout our research and far beyond baseball," says Martinez-Conde, who heads the Laboratory of Visual Neuroscience at Barrow.

The contest results were announced this month at the annual Vision Sciences Society meeting where more than 1,000 attendees voted on the finalists. Sent from around the world, this year's entrees included illusions from artists, academics, scientists and even a Microsoft engineer.

http://www.physorg.com/news162571770.html

here it is:
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/2009/the-break-of-the-curveball/

[dorkulon]

1. Wow. That is pretty cool.

The idea that an actual curveball pitch might be more illusion than lateral motion is also interesting.

[mmonk]

2. I thought you were going to talk about curveball.

Guess I can't move forward.

[Poboy]

3. I thought this was going to be an expose on the made-up lies by the

Bush OSP 'source' called 'curveball'. You know, the stove piped lies that were presented to the world.
That was an 'international illusion' worth criminal prosecution/winning awards.

[Democracyinkind]

4. Who now lives in Germany enjoying his monthly tax funded check....

provided for him by the Bundesnachrichtendienst.

It's great to have allies, ain't it.