Mirror, mirror

• Autores: Douglas Heaven
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2941, 2013, págs. 39-41
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • A Halloween party trick conjures ghostly faces in one's reflection. Ancient Greek depictions of Dionysian rituals, for instance, show initiates gazing into a mirror, perhaps in an attempt to see spirits from the underworld. Then there are the games in which people would chant "Bloody Mary" into a mirror in the hope of conjuring her ghost. One possible explanation for an illusion is that the incomplete view of the image disrupts the way the brain binds together features like the eyes, nose and mouth into a recognizable face. As the brain struggles to make sense of what it is seeing, it might pull scraps from the memory to make up for a poor perception--perhaps patching together a "photo fit" of different features so that it begins to look like another person. Here, Heaven braves the illusion that could tell a lot about schizophrenia.