‘camoflague’ by liu bolin
No one takes their camoflage as seriously as this guy (well maybe Emma Hack does). The optical illusion created by carefully painting the correct parts of his body to match the background are quite bizarre. Would love to see it in video format.
How “cuts” in movies impact our minds
When we watch a movie, we’re usually not conscious of the cuts made by the editor. The camera angle may change dozens of times during a scene, and we follow along as if the flashing from one viewpoint to another wasn’t at all unusual. You might think this is just because we’ve been accustomed to watching TV and movies, but researchers have found that even people who’ve never seen a motion picture have no difficulty following along with the cuts and different camera angles in a video.
But little research has actually been done on the impact of changing camera angles in a movie on our perception and memory of a scene. While cutting abruptly between camera angles seems unnatural, moving a camera from place to place while filming can be quite realistic: after all, people walk around all the time; their own viewpoint is constantly changing. One study did find that people have better memories for a static scene filmed with a moving camera, compared to two still shots taken from the beginning and end- points of the camera’s motion.
But what about dynamic scenes? If the people in a scene are themselves moving, will an abrupt cut to a new camera angle disorient the viewer? Filmmakers have found anecdotally that a 180-degree shift in a cut can be extremely disorienting — that’s why when watching a football or basketball game we usually see the action from just one side of the field or court. But do smaller cuts have a similar impact?
Richard Wiseman is on Facebook
Be sure to head over to Richard Wisemans facebook group for some secret experiments, trickery and interesting psychological stunts. When you get there tell him you’re “from the Derren Brown Army and you know about The Box”. say “Hello” and be polite.
Are flesh eating robots the future of pest control?
UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau believe that, if robots are ever to be welcomed into people’s homes, they’ll need to fit in with the rest of the furniture, and earn their keep. Their prototypes trap and digest pests like flies and mice to gain energy.
Word Of Mouth – Exploring Hypnosis, Brainwashing and Influence
In this episode of Word of Mouth Chris Ledgard considers the use of words to control minds, exploring hypnosis, brainwashing and the recruiting language of cults to find out just how influenced we are by language.
Chris is put into an altered state of consciousness by the soothing words of a hypnotherapist, to find out what kind of words are used to do this and how. Some in the medical profession are calling for hypnosis to be used for pain relief during medical procedures such as bone marrow transplantation and cancer treatment. They say that as hypnosis has no side effects it makes the operation quicker, the recovery faster and the cost less than with the use conventional anaesthetic. But does it really work, and if so, how? Chris talks to the scientists currently working on a systematic review to find out.
Can talk also be used to control and manipulate us into doing things that we would otherwise not do? Stories of people being indoctrinated into cults usually involve descriptions of brainwashing, corruption and manipulation. But are words really powerful enough to control the mind? Chris talks to an ex-cult member turned rhetorical theorist about how language is used.
Hypnosis and criminal mind control in 1890s France
The 19th century French neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette is best known for Tourette’s Syndrome, but a fascinating article in European Neurology traces his interest in the criminal uses of hypnosis.
It is full of surprising facts, like that he was shot in the head by a delusional patient who believed that she had been hypnotised against her will, and that he eventually died in a Swiss asylum after developing psychosis caused by syphilis.
We now know that hypnosis cannot be used to make people do things against their will, but at the time it was widely believed that women could be hypnotised to be easy prey to sexual predators, and even that otherwise innocent people could be hypnotised to be killers against their will. Sort of like a 19th century Manchurian Candidate.
7 fatal injuries that people survived
A rather amusing round up of some of the gruesome ways people have been heavily damaged and survived – a testament to the incredible extremes people can survive. If getting cut in half, having your head cut off, being shot 19 times or having an RPG sticking out of you makes you feel squeamish then don’t read on. There’s no gory photos but the story about the guy shooting himself in the head 12 times with a nail gun during a failed suicide attempt is actually very amusing – he survived with only a headache.
The 10 Oddest Places to Work or Live
Ask yourself: Would you live in a house made of sh*t? What about one made from hemp? Could you see yourself working in an office building comprised of recycled shipping containers? Architects and designers are finding strange, but ingenious ways, of rethinking where we spend our days working and living.
Japanese Scientist Creates Robot Twin
Hiroshi Ishiguro, a senior researcher at ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories in Japan, who has created a robot that looks and moves exactly like himself.
Created to fill in for him as professor at Osaka University, this robot twin known as Geminoid HI-1 even has the personal idiosyncrasies of its owner. It sits and fidgets, taps its toes and can sit in a chair and gaze around the room. The shoulders rise slightly as though it were really breathing. It is so life-like that more than a few shivers creep up the spines of those who watch Geminoid HI-1 in action. Made from silicone casts actually taken from Ishiguro’s own body, Geminoid is powered by pressurized air and small actuators. Its micro-movements run on semi-autonomous motion programs. (more…)
What does the 51st most influential gaybo and 8th sexiest male atheist do on his day off?
So yesterday, Richard Wiseman and I went for a private guided tour around one of the Natural History Museum’s storage units in South London. It was quite extraordinary: acres of taxidermy and enormous skeletons, and some very special pieces: the skeleton of the Thames Whale, for example, is set out in a glass cabinet. We had a smell of a phial of whale oil extracted from the creature. It was quite a pleasant, unusual, soft smell, rather difficult to describe. A little like white tea, perhaps. By which I mean actual white tea, not PG with milk. If you don’t know what white tea smells like, you’re on your own. We also met Guy the Gorilla, the erstwhile London Zoo attraction who now sits on a shelf surrounded by lesser known apes; elsewhere amongst some glassy-eyed deer, an antelope discovered by Darwin as the first recorded of its sub-species, which was then many years later visited by the teary-eyed grandson of the extraordinary naturalist; and the arse-end of the actual bear who, they found out later, was featured on the California State flag:
That one there. That actual individual bear. I bet you didn’t even know they had a flag. I didn’t.
I did take some pictures, but I’m awaiting some clearance forms to be able to put them up here, so you’ll have to wait too.
Next, we’re hoping to go and visit Archie, the giant squid.
Today, I’m meeting with the gallery-owner who will be showing and selling some of my pictures. For any of you wishing to see them, the exhibition will run from 6-21st August at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery, Charlotte St, London W1. Just opposite a sensational Japanese restaurant called Roka, which will round off your trip perfectly. More news on all of this as we firm up details: you’ll be the first to know.
Finally, as I’ve been writing solidly, it’s been a long while since I did any reading, which is rather upsetting. However, I thought I’d mention The Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt. This is a fascinating and challenging tour through the principles of positive psychology: an overview of empirical research into what genuinely makes us happier (as opposed to the misleading, short-term effects of much of ‘self-help’). I hugely enjoyed this book.
Much love,
x
