Althouse: The "flashed face" distortion effect.

May 22, 2012

The "flashed face" distortion effect.

Strange! Watch:

14 comments:

oldirishpig said...: That might explain why criminals always wear a black eye-mask!; 5/22/12, 4:03 PM
Scott M said...: Absolutely bizarre. Creature creators could get a ton of inspiration from that little exercise.; 5/22/12, 4:05 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: 'By eye-aligning the faces, it becomes much easier to compare their shape and the relative location of their features, so the differences between them become more evident.'

So, where was Obama looking that cause peoples faces to disappear?

Oh, In dreams, peoples faces might be difficult to make out.

There is always a benevolent explanation.. thank goodness.; 5/22/12, 4:11 PM
traditionalguy said...: It's the aliens come back for their DNA they dropped of in Egypt 4000 years ago.

The human mind does instant facial recognitions of everybody we meet better than we appreciate. Which is another reason we smile all of the time if we like friends and jurors.

Has anybody seen King Obama's best smile lately? It is hard to beat.

That also may be why computers will never become as good at human teaching skills as special souls such as LaAlthouse.; 5/22/12, 4:15 PM
john said...: Must be a glitch. The one for Robin Williams doesn't get any uglier.; 5/22/12, 4:30 PM
Anonymous said...: You can stop youtube any time, the actors were really ugly even when their faces were not "flashed" by.

The illusion is that we are convinced the actors were good looking when our lying eyes told us otherwise.; 5/22/12, 5:47 PM
sonicfrog said...: It doesn't work for me. I can't stay focused on the crosshairs.; 5/22/12, 5:53 PM
chickelit said...: sonicfrog said...
It doesn't work for me. I can't stay focused on the crosshairs.

Try it again. It's trying to get you to perceive using peripheral vision.

The effect should be called immaculate perception; 5/22/12, 6:26 PM
Rick Lee said...: Man, that is interesting.; 5/22/12, 6:58 PM
Kenneth Burns said...: "Angelina and her celebrity friends."; 5/22/12, 7:00 PM
JAL said...: Well that is just plain weird.; 5/22/12, 9:19 PM
Pastafarian said...: I wonder if we all see the same effects. To me, several looked like Picasso works.

I've never understood Picasso, why he made things look the way he did. This makes me wonder if he was aware of this effect, or some variant of it, and based much of his art on it.; 5/22/12, 9:36 PM
Saint Croix said...: That is so weird!

Do you think plastic surgery has something to do with the effect? A lot of those shots look kinda weird anyway.

To me, several looked like Picasso works.

I got a Picasso vibe. And a cartoon vibe. The photos seems to become actual animations. Really weird.

I also got an alien vibe from several of them. Like we're on pig planet in the Twilight Zone.

It's like our eye is holding on to one distinct image from the photo and sliding over the rest of the face. A big forehead in particular seems to distort. And the eyes go off in weird directions.; 5/22/12, 10:46 PM
Tibore said...: Actually, instead of Picasso, I get the strong impression of Al Hirschfeld type of caricatures. It makes me think that that's what Hirschefeld was able to make himself see when he drew celebrities.; 5/22/12, 11:06 PM