Posted on 01/06/2006 3:07:02 PM PST by blam
Humans Do Not Understand Mirror Reflections, Say Researchers
General Science : December 21, 2005 Newsletter
Psychologists at the University of Liverpool have found that people still find it difficult to understand how mirrors work.
Dr Marco Bertamini, from the University’s School of Psychology, conducted a number of experiments by covering a mirror on a wall and inviting participants to walk along a line parallel to the mirror.
He asked them to guess the point at which they would be able to see their reflection. Results showed that people believe they can see themselves even before they are level with the near edge of the mirror.
Dr Bertamini said: “People tend not to understand that the location of the viewer matters in terms of what is visible in a mirror. A good example of this is what we call the Venus Effect, which relates to the many famous paintings of the goddess Venus, looking in a small mirror.
“If you were to look at these paintings, you would assume that Venus is admiring her own face, because you see her face in the mirror. Your viewpoint, however, is rather different from hers; if you can see her in the mirror then she would see you in the mirror.”
Participants were also asked to estimate the image size of their head as it appears on the surface of the mirror. They estimated that it would be a similar size to their physical head. However, participants based their answer on the image they saw inside the mirror rather than on the image on the surface of it. They failed to recognise that the image on the surface of the mirror is half the size of the observer because a mirror is always halfway between the observer and the image that appears inside the mirror.
Dr Bertamini added: “Mirrors make us see virtual objects that exist in a virtual world; they are windows onto this world. On the one hand we trust what we see, but on the other hand this is a world that we know has no physical existence. This is one of the reasons why throughout history people have been fascinated by mirrors.”
Source: the University of Liverpool
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Right and left are relative to how you are standing. Up and down are not.
. . . now I'm really confused . . .
What does this have to do with psychology? Silly me, I learned about optics in a college physics course.
Well, the first couple of decades of my life, I saw...me!
No surprise there, but as age advanced, I started seeing... my Father!
Now considering the last time I saw him, he was nearly 95, I started getting a little worried. For an old man he was decent looking, but still...
Then, a few years ago, my Grandfather started looking back from that same mirror...
As that parody of Alfred E. Newman went, "I'm getting worried..."
I guess I've never spent much time contemplating the mirror.
In the big list of simple stuff that most humans don't understand, this doesn't make page one. Half of the world's population still thinks socialism works.
Because the mirror reverses front to back, not left to right.
If you hold a page up with the writing facing the mirror, first read the words through the blank side of the page. They're reversed, just like they appear when you look at the written page in the mirror. The mirror is reversing things front to back just like looking at writing from the back of the page.
The problem with mirrors is that they make things look backwards but not upside down. They only reverse one way. This is proof that space is one-dimensional and that plane geometry is fallacious. Next we will take a look at plane psychiatry.
Yes, that proves something or other really important in psychology.
Seems to be a high level of perception happening on FR just now. Could it be happy hour?
Because spoons do the job that mirrors won't do :)
I think this thread proves the scientists theory. We don't understand it...
Statistically, 50% of the population MUST be below average in intelligence. Look at a bell curve:
The left side shows those with IQ's under 100, with the right side showing those with IQ's over 100.
Simple statistical math taught in 1st year engineering.
Snell's law was discovered centuries earlier by an Arab. Al Ib'n something. That is proof of something, too.
"Participants were also asked to estimate the image size of their head as it appears on the surface of the mirror. They estimated that it would be a similar size to their physical head. However, participants based their answer on the image they saw inside the mirror rather than on the image on the surface of it. They failed to recognise that the image on the surface of the mirror is half the size of the observer because a mirror is always halfway between the observer and the image that appears inside the mirror."
If this were so, then of what use would an overhead projector be?
If "left" is "right", and "right" is "left" in a mirror, why isn't "up" "down", and "down" "up"?
Hahaha. It is if you turn it 90 degrees!
I can't seem to see myself in the mirror.
BTW, birds have absolutely no problem figuring out how to find something, the location of which is known only from a reflection in a mirror.
That's because birds are "different".
Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I can see my Pop. It freaks me out every time.
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