PSYCH 367
Perception
Bennett Schwartz — website for the textbook coauthor
Sensation and Perception Tutorials — created by the textbook coauthor John Krantz
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
What science still doesn’t know about the five senses — episodes from Vox’s Unexplainable podcast about our senses
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)
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
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)
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
Anne Treisman — online encyclopedia article describing her life and work
Perception in Visualization — discusses preattentive processing in Feature Integration Theory
Where’s Waldo? — official 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 (archived)
Video Games and Learning — Dr Daphne Bavelier’s lab page describing her research on video games
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!)
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
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
How paint colors get their names — from Elephant’s Breath to Disco Nap
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
Online Color Blindness Simulators — reviews several online filters that simulate the experience of different 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 X/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 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
Dimensions — 3-D painted art gallery in Vancouver
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
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)
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 that let you manipulate gender, weight, etc.
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? (archived)
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
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
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-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.”
Quiet! Our Loud World Is Making Us Sick — article from Scientific American describes the serious negative health outcomes caused by noise
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)
Find An Audiologist.ca — if you have concerns about your hearing, find a local audiologist here
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.) (archived)
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
Stem splitter software (separates any audio file into its components, like drums, vocals, bass, etc.):
• voice.ai free AI stem splitter
Virtual pianos:
• Recursive Arts Virtual Piano
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
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
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
Liquid Trust — purported “social pheromone” spray
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
Gastropod — podcast about food through the lens of science and history; some relevant topics:
• The Curiously Strong Story of Mint
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
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
How to smell train — smell training can help recover a lost sense of smell
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
What’s That I Smell? — article on the claims of aromatherapy, from Skeptical Inquirer magazine online