First in a Long Series | The Brain: A Life Born Into Darkness... The Cafe' Illusion

The Brain: A Life Born Into Darkness... The Cafe' Illusion

The brain is born in total darkness. And with scant exception, it lives and dies in complete blackness, all outside input bore on the shoulders of inanimate, insentient channels, void of judgment for good, bad, or indifference. It is given at birth the inherited blueprint for survival and the machinations for a limitless purpose, but little else. All that we see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is blended with and stands on the shoulders of all those that entered before it.

What, then, to believe?

As clinicians, we trust our sight, largely acting on the imprints we've seen through every encounter.

For our entertainment and also for our pause, we'll publish a series of optical illusions here every month. We hope they'll instill in us an appreciation for our intuition and at least a molecule of doubt in our own infallibility as thinking clinicians... and everyday persons. We hope you enjoy the ride.

The Café Illusion: St. Michael’s Hill Café in Bristol, England

So: Are the tile lines parallel or not?

Prominent vision researchers Richard Gregory and Priscilla Heard first reported this illusion in 1979. A member of Gregory’s lab had noticed that the front of the café had been adorned with black and white ceramic tiles. The mortar between the rows is visually apparent, and the black/white pattern are offset by half a tile width in alternating rows. The horizontal lines are parallel and the wedges are a very convincing illusion.

As we move forward through this series of mental/visual trickery, we'll be tying the impact of how we really see into how we see at the bedside... and how we see life. Come back... we'll meet you right here.