By: Daniel Glaser | Tricks of the brain: the magic of everyday perception | Daniel Glaser | Neuroscience | The Guardian
Optical illusions play on our nervous system’s ability to focus attention on what matters and ignore the background, says Daniel Glaser
The headmaster of our local primary school performs a magic show at this time of year, but the parents aren’t invited. This child-centred approach is exactly what you would want from a school even though it’s frustrating for a neuroscientist because magic is a really interesting way of studying the brain.
Optical illusions have given us very useful insights into how perception works. Tricking the visual system into thinking things are different shapes or colours than they actually are tells us how the brain works in everyday situations as well. Our nervous system is really about filtering out rather than relaying information – if we were aware of all of our sensory inputs all the time, we would rapidly be overwhelmed. Attention is the way we direct the spotlight, ignoring the background and focusing on what matters.
