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The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Monday, September 20, 2010

The Strange-face-in-the-mirror Illusion

The old parlor trick of staring at yourself in a mirror until your face starts to change has now been studied scientifically. Giovanni Caputo led a study in which 50 people tried the trick and reported their reactions.
At the end of a 10 min session of mirror gazing, the participant was asked to write what he or she saw in the mirror. The descriptions differed greatly across individuals and included: (a) huge deformations of one’s own face (reported by 66% of the fifty participants); (b) a parent’s face with traits changed (18%), of whom 8% were still alive and 10% were deceased; (c) an unknown person (28%); (d) an archetypal face, such as that of an old woman, a child, or a portrait of an ancestor (28%); (e) an animal face such as that of a cat, pig, or lion (18%); (f ) fantastical and monstrous beings (48%).
Have you ever tried this? The effect can be really creepy, like this video example from Lasse Gjertsen  (it's in Norwegian). The entire article is available as a pdf, or you can read a summary at Mind Hacks here.

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