PSYCH 367
Perception
Introduction to Perception
Laura Cacciamani — Cal Poly website for the co-author of the textbook
How does toothpaste work? — lists some general and specific ingredients in toothpaste
What’s Inside: Colgate Whitening Oxygen Bubbles Brisk Mint Toothpaste — doesn’t explain the whole orange juice/bad taste thing
Human Senses — companion website for the BBC TV series
How many senses does a human being have? — HowStuffWorks explores senses beyond the standard list of five
How the Blind Draw — suggests common factors in perception; from Scientific American magazine
Optical Illusion Spatial Geometric design Classic White Coffee Mug — buy your own!
What science still doesn’t know about the five senses — episodes from Vox’s Unexplainable podcast about our senses
Psychophysical Methods and Signal Detection Theory
Signal Detection Theory — good summary of SDT
Signal Detection Theory and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC Curve) — interactive demo
Signal Detection Theory — another interactive demo
Signal detection theory — and one more interactive demo (use Google Chrome for this)
Popcorn Subliminal Advertising — Snopes debunks James Vicary’s subliminal advertising
The Subliminal Scares — dossier on subliminal stimuli in advertising (archive)
“Subliminal” Advertising — covers the history of so-called subliminal messages in ads
Snopes: Disney — Snopes investigates urban legends about Disney films
Backmasking — backwards messages in music?
Audio reversal in popular culture — more technical explanation; has backward messages (in AIFF format)
The Subliminal Scares — a look at claims about subliminal stimuli (archived)
Neurophysiology
Neuroscience For Kids — great basic information on neuroscience--not just for kids!
Neuropsychology Central — excellent collection of links
Neuron — interactive neuron showing action potential
The Physical Factors Behind the Action Potential — concise summary with animations
The Whole Brain Atlas — see cross-sections of the brain, plus much more
Introductory Biological Psychology Tutorials — very useful for review purposes
Neural manifolds - The Geometry of Behaviour — YouTube video exploring new mathematical approaches to understadning neural coding
Carrot Myth Was A Key Ingredient To Britain's WWII Success — revisits the campaign to cover the development of Airborne Interception Radar
Introduction to Vision
Who was Ibn al-Haytham? — describes his life and findings
Vision and Cameras - Ibn al-Haytham — brief video bio
What Are Those Weird Floating Things You Sometimes See In Your Vision? — explains visual “floaters”
Comprehensive Eye Examinations — infographic from the Canadian Association of Optometrists
Optimum HDTV viewing distance — here are simple and complex calculators for finding the optimal screen size/viewing distance
TV Size to Distance Calculator and Science — explains the science behind this field-of-view calculator
Tips for Choosing the Best Sunglasses — gives 8 important tips
Webvision — online book on the organization of the vertebrate retina
Visual Acuity ↔ Hyperacuity — test your visual acuity with a Landolt ring or Vernier grating
Tricks of the eye, wisdom of the brain — explains how lateral inhibition works
Receptive Field Tutorial — with explanations and diagrams
Explore Your Blind Spot — brief online book explains your blind spot
Diffraction — explains this wave properties of light
A Pictorial Introduction to Fourier Analysis — good tutorial on Fourier analysis
Fourier Series Applet — interactive applet demonstrating how sine waves can make up any complex waveform
Make Your Own Campbell-Robson Contrast Sensitivity Chart — includes stimuli to measure your own CSF (archived)
Higher-Level Visual Processes
fMRI In 1000 Words — short and simple introduction to how fMRI works
No Face Like Home — blog about prosopagnosia by someone who has this condition
What are Visual Agnosias? — short descriptions of various agnosias, from the University of Calgary (archived)
visual form agnosia — a simulation of the experience of visual form agnosia
Brain Story: The Mind’s Eye — watch the documentary about vision online
Visual Attention
Anne Treisman — online encyclopedia article describing her life and work
Perception in Visualization — discusses preattentive processing in Feature Integration Theory
Where’s Waldo? — official Facebook page for the infuriating book series
Demos and Stimuli — videos of change blindness and inattentional blindness, from Daniel Simons’ lab
Examples of Change Blindness — from UBC’s Visual Cognition Lab
Change Blindness — from the Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (with demos)
Counterfeit! — look for the difference between two copies of a painting (like change blindness)
Movie mistakes — you have to overcome change blindness to notice these
Confusing Colors (Stroop Effect) — try this interactive demo
Video Games and Learning — Dr Daphne Bavelier’s lab page describing her research on video games
Object Perception
Visual Dictionary Online — gives you the names for things based on what they look like
I Create Shadow Art From Trash — gallery showing shadow art (demonstrating the inverse projection problem)
50 Incredibly Creative Logos With Hidden Meanings — from Digital Synopsis
Watercolor illusion — many examples and extensive explanation of this illusion
Neuroscientist Answers Illusion Questions From Twitter — Pascal Wallisch, NYU Professor of Psychology and Data Science, answers the internet's burning questions about illusions
Turn Your Head — get your face carved into a piece of wood
The Designer’s Guide to Gestalt Psychology — background and examples, with an eye to implications for design
What is MICR? — Magnetic Ink Character Recognition codes are printed a the bottom of cheques
The Pareidolia Project — faces, or just coincidence? You be the judge! (With more, and more!)
The Paranormal
Rhine Research Center — “Bridging the Gap between Science and Spirituality’ by studying parapsychology and extraordinary experiences
The Rhine Research Center — article on one of the world’s oldest and best-known foundations devoted to paranormal study
Extrasensory Perception Test (ESP Test) — online Zener card test: see if you’re psychic!
Advanced ESP Test — if the test above failed to confirm your psychic abilities, try this one instead!
PEAR — online encyclopedia article on the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab
Psychic dog phenomenon brought back down to earth — read about Jaytee; from the BBC
How Nostradamus Works — from How Stuff Works
Nostradamus Repository — click on “Random Quatrain” for a prediction and make up your own mind
James Randi Educational Foundation — website for the debunker of paranormal and pseudo-scientific claims
The Skeptic’s Dictionary — reference to all sorts of reputed psychic and unexplained phenomena
Perception & Action
The mind’s mirror — introduction to research on “mirror neurons”
Mirror Neurons — video clip from NOVA scienceNOW
Mirror Neurons — provocative online paper by V.S. Ramachandran
Mirror Neurons And The Brain In The Vat — V.S. Ramachandran’s “sequel” to his original paper
iCub — website for the open-source iCub cognitive humanoid robotic platform
A Calm Look at the Most Hyped Concept in Neuroscience - Mirror Neurons — Wired magazine article reviews recent research
How the Brain ‘Constructs’ the Outside World" — Scientific American article that argues for a different model that integrates perception and action
Motion Perception
Stepping feet — blocks appear to “step” at equiluminance (also see radial version)
Footsteps — another version of the stepping feet, from Stuart Anstis
Structure from motion at equiluminance — change the luminance until the rotating sphere is just moving dots
Breathing Square Illusion — example of the rigidity heuristic in motion perception
Motion Demos — lots of cool motion demos
Wagon-wheel effect — interactive demo of the wagon wheel illusion as shown in class
Wagon Wheel Effect — YouTube video of this motion illusion
Motion Aftereffect — interactive demo of the motion effect with Buddha, as shown in class
BioMotionLab Demos & Experiments — different interactive versions of biological motion
Uncanny valley clips from YouTube:
• Orville Redenbacher TV commercial
• Mass Effect Andromeda’s animations are getting compared to Pingu, robots and gorillas
The Uncanny Valley — Why are monster-movie zombies so horrifying and talking animals so fascinating?
Almost too human and lifelike for comfort — blog on the uncanny valley
The undead zone — Slate article on the uncanny valley in video games
Facial Action Coding System (FACS) - A Visual Guidebook — more info on the Ekman & Friesen system for cataloging facial expressions, with video clips of each action
Persistence of Vision — article by Stephen Herbert explains motion perception (archived)
How Movie Projectors Work — from How Stuff Works
The Hobbit’s 48 Frames Per Second Explained — a history of movie frame rates
Colour Perception
Kings of Camouflage — watch this episode of NOVA
Hue-Saturation-Brightness (HSB) Explorer — interactive demo; also see RGB Explorer
Light Waves and Color — online tutorial from PhysicsClassroom.com also has self-test questions
ColoRotate — learn about colour (iPad app also available)
Why The Ancient Greeks Couldn’t See Blue — AsapSCIENCE video on colour names
Metameric Matches — explore metamers with this interactive demo
ColorMatters — how colour affects us physiologically and psychologically
Subtractive Color Mixing and Additive Color Mixing — interactive demos of colour mixing
The First Colour Photographic Image — has a video demonstration of the process
CIE Chromaticity Diagram — interactive demo (Windows app also available)
Commission Internationale de L’Éclairage — official website
Coblis - Color Blindness Simulator — filters images to show the experience of various forms of colour deficiencies
Spanish Castle — interactive colour afterimage--plus tutorial on creating your own [archived]
Induced Contrast Asynchrony — dynamic example of simultaneous contrast with grayscale stimuli
Color illusion — lots of great simultaneous colour contrast spirals by A. Kitaoka (follow him on Twitter for more!)
Why Your Brain Confuses Colors — Wired video of neuroscientist David Eagleman explaining #TheDress and other illusions using colour constancy
Square — another example of simultaneous colour contrast (archived)
Color and painting — excellent lecture from Handprint Media
Ishihara test for colour blindness — and more information about colour deficiency
Colour Vision Test — see whether you have protanopia, deuteranopia, or tritanopia (Windows and Android apps also available)
McCollough effect — Warning! May result in extremely long-lasting aftereffects
Depth and Size Perception
Depth Perception & Death Prevention: Babies’ Visual Instinct — brief history of the exploration of depth perception
Museum of Illusions — in-person museums in Montreal, Toronto, and more!
Thinky the Dragon — download free printable template from Thinkfun.com, designed in honour of magician Jerry Andrus
The Art of Renaissance Science: Galileo and Perspective — shows the use of perspective in art (archived)
Brunelleschi and the Origin of Linear Perspective — describes the painting of the Baptistry in Florence (archived)
The Story of Community Bridge — a trompe l’oeil illusion (archived)
Some amazing pavement drawing illusions, by artists Julian Beever, Kurt Wenner, Manfred Stader, and Edgar Mueller
3D Painted Rooms — geometric shapes can be seen from only one viewing angle in these rooms
Illusions & Paradoxes — more illusions from Archimedes’ Laboratory
The Illusions Index — not just a gallery, this site also explains illusions
The Arrow in the Eye — on the psychology of perspective and Renaissance art
Stereo Photography — some examples of “wiggle stereoscopy”
How do you convert a movie to 3D, anyway? — explains how they converted Titanic to 3-D
Perception and The Art of 3D Storytelling — more info on 3-D moviemaking, using Coraline as an example (archived; original here)
Magic Eye® — many single-image random-dot stereograms
Autostereogram — history and explanation of autostereograms
M.C. Escher — see some of the neat artwork by this famous artist
View-Master — Wikipedia article about this classic toy
Illusions
Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities beyond Normal Limits — describes research on how expectations can have surprising effects
Best Illusion of the Year Contest — this proves that there are still new illusions to be discovered!
Müller-Lyer — interactive demo of this illusion
Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena — another good collection of illusions
IllusionWorks — many more illusions, with some explanations
ColorCube — has some colour-based “optical” illusions
Light, Color and Seeing — DIY activities from the Exploratorium®
The moon illusion — short TED-Ed animated video about the moon illusion
The moon illusion — a brief description of the effect (archived)
The Moon Illusion, An Unsolved Mystery — a comprehensive introduction (archived)
Father-Son Scientists Confirm Why Horizon Moon Appears Larger — the Kaufmans’ explanation of the moon illusion
Rail Safety FAQ — rail safety information from Operation Lifesaver Canada (US site here)
Audition
Twenty Thousand Hertz — podcast about the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds, including:
• Sound 101 (with Bill Nye!)
Everything You Should Know About Sound — from Wait But Why
Sound Waves and Music — online tutorial from PhysicsClassroom.com also has self-test questions
Example Sounds -- Psychoacoustics — listen to examples of equal loudness vs. equal amplitude, masking, precedence effect, and more
How Hearing Works — online video from Scientific American
The Interactive Ear — a guide to human hearing
The Elements Of Acoustics And Psychoacoustics — basic physics of sound, and the sound/perception relationship
Acoustics FAQ — informal file of typical questions and answers on acoustical topics
Equal loudness contours and audiometry — test your hearing online and create your personal equal loudness curve
Video animations of traveling waves (.mpg format; view in continuous loop for best results): 250 Hz, 1000 Hz, 4000 Hz
Hearing pitch - right place, wrong time? — compares the competing theories of pitch perception
Listen to what gets lost when an MP3 is made — explanation and audio example based on the first-ever MP3 file, Suzanne Vega’s song, “Tom’s Diner”
QSoundLabs® — demos of QSound technology
Precedence Effect — listen to audio examples of the precedence effect
Noise and Hearing Loss
Noise-Induced Hearing Loss — explains the causes of NIHL and how to prevent it
Canadian Tinnitus Foundation — Facebook group
Noise Free America — describes some of the negative social effects of noise
NoiseOFF — the Citizens Coalition Against Noise Pollution
Quiet Communities — working together for a quieter world
Noise Pollution Clearinghouse — the NPC’s slogan is “Good neighbors keep their noise to themselves.”
Dying for some quiet: The truth about noise pollution — article from New Scientist
Please Get Your Noise Out of My Ears — Freakonomics podcast episode on the effects of noise
Silence, please — article from the APA’s Monitor on Psychology
One Square Inch — website (and book) about noise, and the quietest place in the United States
Mosquito Anti-Teenager Repellent Alarm — formerly called The Mosquito Anti-Loitering Device
Mosquito Ringtones — try to hear tones from 8 kHz to 22 kHz
Warning Signs of Hearing Loss — from Beltone, a hearing aid maker
Hearing Loss Simulator — try this interactive demo of hearing loss to experience what it’s like
Online Hearing Screener — 3-minute online hearing check (or try this online hearing test)
Causes of Hearing Loss — describes different causes and types of hearing loss
Sound Sense — hearing resources for teachers, kids, and parents
Dangerous Decibels — public health campaign against NIHL and tinnitus
Music Making Fans Deaf? — how the iPod generation may be losing its hearing without even knowing it, from Rolling Stone magazine
H.E.A.R. — Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers--rawk on! (But protect your hearing.)
Hearing Loss — great FAQ from Musicians’ Clinics of Canada
Etymotic Research, Inc. — quality online seller of earphones and ear protection
Wear It Right — instructions on how to put in earplugs
Protect your ears from noise — Still don’t know how to put in earplugs? Watch this short Consumer Reports video.
12 Hour Sound Machines (no loops or fades) — this Spotify “podcast” just plays variants on white noise, and has been streamed hundreds of millions of times
Music Perception
Virtual Piano — online “piano” you can play with your keyboard or mouse (here’s another)
Maqam World — learn more about the maqam or modal system used in classical Arabic music
Bouncing Off The Walls — article on concert hall design, from Lingua Franca magazine
The Institute for Music & Brain Science — advancing knowledge about the neurobiological foundations of music
Science and Art Converge in Concert Hall Acoustics — article on design and sound in concert halls
ZLab — researcher Robert Zatorre’s Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory
The Music Instinct: Science & Song — companion website for the PBS special
How music affects the brain — article on how Canadian researchers lead the way in understanding the neurological, psychological and cognitive basis of music
The Mozart Effect® — author Don Campbell’s website on The Mozart Effect®
Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major — listen to this Mozart piece--will it make you more intelligent?
The Mozart Effect — interactive look at TME and intelligence
Mozart effect — a more...scientific look at TME, from the Skeptic’s Dictionary
This Is Your Brain On Music — companion website to Daniel Levitin’s book
Musicophilia — companion website to Oliver Sacks’ book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
Synesthesia
Myth or Science: The Secrets of Our Senses — The Nature of Things episode on multisensory/cross-modal perception
Synesthesia (Boing Boing remix) — video shown in class (full version is Red Mondays and Gemstone Jalapeños: The Synesthetic World)
The Synesthesia Battery — online test for synesthesia
Are You A Synesthete? 7 Synesthesia Tests to Find It Out — or try this quick self-test
Richard E. Cytowic — official homepage of the author of Synesthesia: A union of the senses
Do you see what they see? — article on synesthesia from Discover magazine
Everyday fantasia: The world of synesthesia — from Monitor on Psychology magazine
Music Animation Machine — gives visual experience of music
American Synesthesia Association — hosts an annual conference on synesthesia
Multisense Synaesthesia Toolkit — has a range of information on synesthesia
The Frog Who Croaked Blue — companion website for the book
The Cutaneous Senses
Why Physical Touch Matters for Your Well-Being — interview with touch researcher Tiffany Field
Why Light Touching Can Double Your Chances of Getting a Date — try this one weird trick!
Proxemics: How to Use the 4 Zones in ANY Social Situation — explains proxemics with lots of examples
Making public spaces safe after COVID-19 lockdown — explains social distancing in light of the pandemic
Professor hacks into nervous system — chip implant is designed to determine neural code
Intro to Vestibular System — explains the anatomy and physiology of the vestibular sense
The Neuroscience of Touch and Pain — online article from BrainFacts.org discusses the neural structures that mediate our experience of touch and pain
Vero Labs — sells oxytocin-containing sprays, including “Connekt” and “Attrakt”; maker of previous product “Liquid Trust”
The Gate Control Model Opens a New Era in Pain Research — online exhibit from UCLA’s Biomedical Library (archived)
Ronald Melzack: Pain Pioneer — McGill University video about Melzack
Gate Control Theory of Pain — YouTube video with multiple choice questions
From Ramachandran’s Notebook — read about phantom limb pain at PBS Online
Gustation
A matter of taste — article about Prof. Linda Bartoshuk and her research on taste
Tasty — book on the art and science of what we eat
McCormick Science Institute — researching the health effects of herbs and spices
Taste Disorders — a description from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
Challenging the Tongue Taste Map — shows how E.G. Boring misinterpreted earlier data
Peak Umami? — Wired explores the “fifth taste”
Society for Research on Umami Taste — professional organization for scientists studying umami
Umami--Our Fifth Taste — from the (probably completely unbiased) Glutamate Association
Why does orange juice taste bad after you brush your teeth? — an answer at last
A Tiny Fruit That Tricks the Tongue — New York Times article on miracle fruit
Miracle fruit is available from Miracle Frooties, MiraBerry.ca, and Amazon.ca
Google Doodle for Wilbur Scoville’s 151st birthday — has online game!
Chile Heat Scale — describes Scoville Units for chili peppers
Superhot “Dragon’s Breath” Chili Pepper Can Kill. Here’s How — article on this spicy pepper (but Pepper X is now the world’s hottest!)
Some bravery as a side dish — here are 7 foods that truly require a fearless stomach
What Chili Peppers Can Teach Us about Pain — interview with 2021 Nobel Prize winner David Julius
Olfaction
Flavor: The Science of our Most Neglected Sense — book written by Edmontonian Bob Holmes
What the Nose Knows — book on “the science of scent in everyday life” by Avery Gilbert
How COVID-19 Causes Loss of Smell — describes research on SARS-CoV2
The Wine Aroma Wheel — order one from this website...
Wine aromas — ...or check out this free one
Monell Chemical Senses Center — independent scientific institute doing research on the senses of taste, smell, and chemosensory irritation
Reclaiming the Fifth Sense — Proof podcast episode giving a first-hand account of anosmia by writer Molly Birnbaum
Scents and sensibility — article about the effects of olfaction on cognition, emotion, and even other senses, from the APA Monitor on Psychology
Why Asparagus Makes Your Urine Smell — this article is about...well, it’s self-explanatory
Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation — Dr. Alan Hirsch’s website
What’s That I Smell? — article on the claims of aromatherapy, from Skeptical Inquirer magazine online