Shocking illusion

These faces have not been altered in any way.

It’s a new scientific finding called the “Flashed Face Distortion Effect”. You can read more about it here

http://mbthompson.com/research

and here

http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=p6968

Tangen, J. M., Murphy, S., & Thompson, M. B. (in press). Flashed face distortion effect: Grotesque faces from relative spaces. Perception advance online publication, doi:10.1068/p6968.

Thanks to http://3d.sk for the faces.

The McGurk Effect – Is Seeing Believing?

Great example of the McGurk Effect taken from the BBC show Horizon.

From Wikipedia (Check out that last sentence):

The McGurk effect is a perceptual phenomenon which demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. It suggests that speech perception is multimodal, that is, that it involves information from more than one sensory modality. The McGurk effect is sometimes called the McGurk-MacDonald effect. It was first described in a paper by Harry McGurk and John MacDonald in 1976.

This effect may be experienced when a video of one phoneme‘s production is dubbed with a sound-recording of a different phoneme being spoken. Often, the perceived phoneme is a third, intermediate phoneme. For example, a visual /ga/ combined with an audio /ba/ is often heard as /da/. Further research has shown that it can exist throughout whole sentences.^{[citation needed]} The effect is very robust; that is, knowledge about it seems to have little effect on one’s perception of it. This is different from certain optical illusions, which break down once one ‘sees through’ them.

Study into the McGurk effect is being used to produce more accurate speech recognition programs by making use of a video camera and lip reading software. It has also been examined in relation to witness testimony; Wareham & Wright’s 2005 study showed that inconsistent visual information can change the perception of spoken utterances, suggesting that the McGurk effect may have many influences in everyday perception.

Via The Daily Wh.at