An Optical Illusion That Turns Celebrities Photos Into Monsters (But Only In Your Mind)
Sep 22, 2014
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Share:
Take a minute to watch the video above. Focus on the middle cross. Now watch it again and focus on either on the sides.
We have grown and were taught that celebrity headshots represent the ultimate beauty. And they usually do. But not always. An optical illusion called the “Flashed Face Distortion Effect”.
But…. It turns out that if you place two faces (attractive as they may be) next to each other and flash them rapidly, both faces features become exaggerated. While this is a relatively new find, Matthew B. Thompson explains some of its aspects:
The effect seems to depend on processing each face in light of the others. By aligning the faces at the eyes and presenting them quickly, it becomes much easier to compare them, so the differences between the faces are more extreme. If someone has a large jaw, it looks almost ogre-like. If they have an especially large forehead, then it looks particularly bulbous. We’re conducting several experiments right now to figure out exactly what’s causing this effect, so watch this space!
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
Join the Discussion
DIYP Comment Policy
Be nice, be on-topic, no personal information or flames.