Course info

In February 2015, much of the world's population became captivated by a badly taken photograph of a dress, which soon became known as #TheDress. Some people were convinced that the pictured dress was blue and black, while others were equally convinced it was white and gold. This episode fascinated people because it showed that our perception can differ dramatically from the objective "truth". There are many other amazing visual illusions, and the purpose of this module is to make students aware of these illusions, and help them to understand how the illusions occur. Each lecture will take a particular type of visual illusion and discuss the possible explanations for it. Along the way, students will learn about how the eye and brain process visual information.


Aims

This module aims to give students an understanding of many of the most important visual illusions known to vision science. The module aims to entertain students with some amazing illusions, and educate them by explaining the brain processes that cause them. There is also a wider aim: the furore over #TheDress showed that there is tremendous popular interest in visual illusions, and a great popular demand for clear and concise explanations of them. This module aims to provide the students with clear and concise explanations of visual illusions so that they can satisfy their own curiosity, and provide explanations to friends and relatives who may be equally interested in these phenomena.