"Once you have learnt something you see the world differently. Not only can you appreciate or do something that you couldn't appreciate or do before, but the way you saw the world before is now lost to you. This works for the small things as well as the big picture. If you learn the meaning of a new word, you won't be able to ignore it like you did previously. If you learn how to make a cup of out of clay you won't ever be able to see cups like you used to before.
We can see this in microcosm if we look at a small example of what is called one-shot perceptual learning. What do you think this picture is?
Now probably you don't know, but I would like you do savour the feeling of not knowing. Try and taste, like a rare wine, what the perceptual experience is like. You can see the parts of the picture, the blacks and the whites, various shapes, some connected to others and some isolated.
If you now look at this popup here then you will have this taste washed out of your mind and irrevocably removed. It will be gone, and you will never be able to recover it. This is why I asked you to savour it. Now look at the original again. Notice how the parts are now joined in a whole. You just cannot see the splotches of black and white, the groups, the isolated parts, again."
Fascinating!
Read the full post: Mind Hack
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I saw a happy, grinning fish swimming out at me... so not too far off. However, I prefer my imaginary picture to the rather mundane one of the frog in the pop-up...
ReplyDeleteI saw a native with headress...best wushes from Frogland
ReplyDeleteI saw a bloke with a fancy hat. I am learning so much that everyday I feel like a new dog.
ReplyDeleteI saw a native with a headdress as well, like an Aztec...would never have thought it was a frog. ♥
ReplyDeleteI saw Jesus Christ. Well, not in person (that'd freak me out... and ruin years of faithlessness), but in the picture. Honestly? I like the frog better.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly I couldn't figure out anything before I see that frog one.
ReplyDeleteYes I can! - uh-oh what does that make for?
ReplyDeleteat first i thought? tribal/primival drawing.
then after i cliked on the frog pic. & went back & looked at it again- i saw the black & white frog. but when i looked back a 2nd time it looked like the tribal drawing again.
Like rdl, I can decide which one I want to see, even when I now know that the original picture is a frog (and I know my frogs. It's like that optical illusions - is it a candlestick or two people about to kiss (ooops, wrong blog)
ReplyDeleteJulius Caesar just turned into a frog before my very eyes! I love this kind of thing.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed that but I must admit that I wanted to go back to not knowing after I saw the frog.
ReplyDeletePS. I moved you to my reader instead of blogger so I'm not being a meanie and unfollowing...just shuffling around. I'm trying to reorganize things a bit. :)
I saw a guy in a bike helmet as in the Tour de France - hey thats spooky - up popped a "frog". God, I am glad I am not Prince Harry!
ReplyDeleteRegardign your comment on my post, just wanted to tell you it's advice a good friend gave me years ago.
ReplyDelete1st I thought I saw a distorted pic of the face of statue of liberty, I could see eyes, nose, ears (frogs left eye) and an upturned collar.
ReplyDeleteQuite surprised to find a frog underneath that all. Very true post.
I found I could still go back to the swashbuckler with a hat about to nibbled on the left ear by a fish if I looked first at the hat but the frog will not go away either... a tricky thing, the mind.
ReplyDeletei saw a rendering of the statue of liberty - one i would imagine picasso might do! no matter what i did, pre and post frog i saw the same thing.
ReplyDeleteJulius Caesar...then a frog...I love these things!
ReplyDeleteSad but true, I saw a soldier with a pig nose.
ReplyDeleteI do however find your post most thought provoking. I will never see things quite the same.
Interesting. There is a most beautiful sales assistant at our local bank: Burmese, bright eyes, big smile, dusky skin, truly luscious.
ReplyDeleteOne day recently I saw her standing outside the bank, having a cigarette. She's still a nice girl, I still enjoy chatting with her, but the attraction has gone.
Oh, and before the frog click I thought this belonged on your After Dark blog... hmmm... that was a much more fun picture before. Alas, can't be unlearned.
ReplyDeleteThis is presumably also how I can spot brand new Oxford-weave, button-down-collar shirts in charity shops, without rummaging tediously through the entire men's clothing rail: I carry, in my mind's eye, the whole, highly detailed picture of what I like to buy. The items practically leap out at you by themselves, once you've mastered the technique, seemingly with no conscious thought required.
ReplyDeleteInitially I saw a Statue/bust of a grumpy MR. Liberty who could do with a nose job.
ReplyDeleteAfter I saw the froggy, for a second I still didnt see him on the original picture. Then....I did.
Give me back my ignorance! The truth is too slimy!
ReplyDeleteStatue of liberty in a stylised cartoon manga kinda way.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post and thanks to Mark for making me aware of it.
It started out as a blotchy mess and then returned to that. (with a little 'face in strange hat' :-)
ReplyDeletei meant hugs not huts... laptop keyboards and i are not yet best friends. snowsparkle
ReplyDelete