Mind Tricks

Nearly everyone likes to look at photographs. We are indoctrinated to absorb information from images as infants and we see thousands of them in the course of a few days. We also expect photographs to be representing the objects we see. We want to believe in photographs–although we have some reservations about those proofs we got back from the portrait studio.

It is the desire to believe in the image that is the subject of this post. I was curious to know how much I could distort an image without destroying belief in its integrity. In fact, I wanted to present the viewer with an obvious fallacy and have them puzzle over what was wrong. Instead, the distortions I created ended up looking too real to be mistrusted.

What mechanism allows our brains to accept as reality what is obviously fake?

Take a look at the images here, knowing full well that they are manipulated, and ask yourself why you can be duped so easily...


Doesn't this look like a normal photo of a church? In actuality it is a straight-on frontal view with a side view added:






Here are more examples:















Kind of in the same line of thought; that is, how the mind creates a believable image from insufficient data, take a look at this one:


Do you find these curious?