ILLUSIONS: Is 'A' the same shade as 'B'?
Believe it or not...
Yes, 'A' is the same shade as 'B'
The following link will send you to the MIT website that will enable you to "see" this optical illusion and will provide proof if you are still not sure if the shades of gray are the same.
http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html
This link will enable you to explore other illusions in motion...
http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz/gaz-teaching/index.html
In what ways can mental health diagnoses act as an "illusion"?
Are these lines parallel?
If you aren't sure, grab a straight edge ruler and find out!The black and white rectangles are not lined up directly on top of one another and while you can definitely see the gray line in-between the black and black rectangles, the gray line between the black and white rectangles is not clearly visible.
The result is our visual wiring system deciding the space is "not real" and, in effect, your brain shrinks these spaces. This is why these lines appear unparalleled. Crazy!
Do you see puzzle pieces?
...or do you see a word? Once your brain has made sense out of the word implanted in these shapes, it is nearly impossible NOT to see the word LIFT. The human brain is wired to immediately recognize what it has already made sense of previously. What happens if the initial assessment is false? It might not seem too terribly problematic with this example, but what if a young child makes sense of abuse by blaming them self? If it is nearly impossible not to see what the brain has already identified (abuse was my fault), then this child is in need of special interventions to rewrite their autobiographical narrative to identify the abuser as the cause of abuse, not them self.
For more fun optical illusions, visit the "Your Amazing Brain" website at:
http://www.youramazingbrain.org/supersenses/default.htm
When we aren't sure what to do, what are our tendencies?
Conformity:
Seemed like a good idea at the time...?
This video clip of "Candid Camera" demonstrates the tendency all of us have to conform when in situations that are out of the realm of the "norm". This is a humorous way of acknowledging that we feel most comfortable, no matter how strange we behave, when we fit in with those around us. In case you are thinking, in this day and age, people are different and less likely to conform...there is a recent and modern study also posted in the YouTube menu (Candid Camera is the first selection, modern version of conformity is the second and fifth selection...among other random inclusions!).
Stanford Prison Experiment
In 1971, Philip Zimbardo conducted a prison experiment at Stanford University. The experiment was originally intended to last two weeks, but had to end after only 6 days due to the unbearable conditions student participants were experiencing. The following link provides in-depth details of this experiment, as well as what the end results indicated in terms of social psychology and human nature.
The purpose of including this link on this website is to challenge administrators of psychiatric hospitals, residential treatment programs, and group home environments to take active measures to ensure the cultural environment for staff and consumers is consistently being tended to.
As this page demonstrates, sometimes what we "see" isn't really what we are seeing, and sometimes conforming to more dominant personalities in confusing/stressful situations is easier than standing alone in what we believe is 'correct'.
**Caution** Some folks might feel varying levels of distress while viewing this link.
Stanford Prison Experiment website: http://www.prisonexp.org/
My Stroke of Insight (click title to watch lecture on ted.com)
(Exerpt from biography on www.ted.com)One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor's brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness ... Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She has become a spokesperson for stroke recovery and for the possibility of coming back from brain injury stronger than before. In her case, although the stroke damaged the left side of her brain, her recovery unleashed a torrent of creative energy from her right. From her home base in Indiana, she now travels the country on behalf of the Harvard Brain Bank as the "Singin' Scientist."
Link to Jill's powerful lecture on the brain and recovery from brain stroke: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
