Tricks of Eye and Mind: The Story of Optical Illusion

by Larry Kettelkamp

Book Overview

Describes various kinds of optical illusions, experiments concerning them, and their use in art and design. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0688218296
• ISBN13: 9780688218294
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 127 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.

Customer Reviews

this book has given me my first, simple eye-opening introduction to optical illusions!

Tricks of Eye and Mind: The Story of Optical Illusion by Larry Kettelkamp I am constantly fascinated by optical illusions & I love to read books about them. I have also amassed quite a vast collection of them. This is one of my first books which I have acquired as early as the early 80's. Optical illusions occur all around us, though we frequently are unaware of them. This lucid, interesting study explains how they happen, why, & what use we make of them. In a nut shell, the book consists of three vital parts: Part I discussed the structure of the eye as the receptor of visual information (as much as 90% of whatever we learn in a lifetime enter us through our eyes!) & describes some of the early experiments scientists devised to observe how the mind interprets that information. Part II considered the various perceptual tendencies that encourage illusions. Part III explored the practical applications of optical illusions. I often use optical illusions to illustrate perceptual sensitivity & the significance of multiple perspectives in my creativity classes. In the book, there are numerous illustrations, unfortunately in black & white only. Nevertheless, this book has given me my first, simple eye-opening introduction to optical illusions. One of the biggest real-life optical illusions I have encountered in my entire life is the Parthenon Temple on the Acropolis hills of Athens, Greece. If you look carefully at close range, you'll see that the columns aren't straight - they bulge slightly. (Likewise, if you look carefully at a postcard photograph of the Parthenon, you'll see that the building is scrunched a little bit: The columns at the center are more widely placed than at the sides. As a result, the plaques with the sculptures (metopes) are widest in the center as well. The reason for this lies in the problem of what do you do with the triglyphs when you reach a corner: Especially if the triglyph is "supposed" to be exactly above the center of each column? Slight contraction of the facade is the answer, so that the illusion is that the triglyphs are evenly spaced; but the outside ones land neatly in the corners of the building structure.) Why would the Greeks do this? The prevailing theory (as told by my guide) is that meant to correct the optical illusion that a long line that is truly straight will tend to appear to be concave - to look like it's sagging. By departing from a straight line it also gives the building a liveliness it would not otherwise have - a liveliness that comes from slight deviations from straight lines plus absolutely even spacing.