“Rotating Snake” Illusion

 

First the original “Rotating Snake” <http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/rotsnake.gif> by Akiyoshi Kitaoka, modified just a little:

rotsnake

 

Background – In the image above the strong (and beautiful) rotation of the “wheels” occurs in relation to eye movements. On steady fixation the effect vanishes.

 

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For an explanatory hypothesis, view the animation on the above. You ma y wish to press the ‘Stop’ button after a while … it gets on one’s nerves ;-). See also Backus & Oruc 2004 for their explanation.

 

What to observe

 

- Even when fixating steadily, illusory motion occurs on appearance/ disappearance

- Illusion does not depend on colour

- Rotation direction depends on the polarity of the luminance steps (I arranged these to evoke a “gearbox effect” here, by mirroring the images appropriately)

- Strength of illusion depends strongly on background luminance. The background luminance slowly ramps from 0% to 100% automatically, or you can use the slider. The illusionary rotation is strongest for 50% gray (exact value will depend on your monitor ‘gamma’).

 

Comment

 

As Kitaoka & Ashida (2003) describe, asymmetric luminance steps are required. Presumably appearance of these triggers motion detectors (as in the animation on the right). I assume that the actual mechanism is quite similar to the “Rotating Spokes” illusion, where asymmetric luminance steps occur as well. Gregory & Heard (1983) were the first to describe that asymmetric luminance steps cause illusory movement.

 

A “Stress Test”? – No!

 

Repeatedly, I was sent such pictures with the assertion that they comprise a stress test (and some of the people sending me this were deeply worried). And I just found a web page entitled “test online the level of stress” (I will not link to it) which contains these statements “For a normal person, they should all move at a slow pace, barely rotating. The slower the pictures rotate, the better your ability of handling stress: Allegedly, criminals see stress test images moving and spinning around madly, while seniors and children see them still…”

 

This is utter BS! Don’t get alarmed. For one, the effect depends on eye movements, and these are known to differ markedly between subjects without relating clearly to psychological traits. Further, a few people do not see it at all (could be around 5%, among them a very renowned vision scientist), in spite of appropriate eye movements. There are no actual data showing relations to stress (or age), so don't distress yourself when you see it rotating strongly or not at all.

 

Sources

 

Gregory RL, Heard PF (1983) Visual dissociations of movement, position, and stereo depth: Some phenomenal phenomena. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 35A:217–237 [PDF]

Kitaoka A, Ashida H (2003) Phenomenal characteristics of the peripheral drift illusion. VISION 15:261–262

Backus & Oruc 2004 VSS presentation abstract + background material [seems no longer available]

Conway BR, Kitaoka A, Yazdanbakhsh A, Pack CC, & Livingstone MS (2005) Neural basis for a powerful static motion illusion. J Neurosci 25:5651–5656

Backus & Oruc (2005) Illusory motion from change over time in the response to contrast and luminance. Journal of Vision 5:1055–1069

 

 

Created: 2004-01-03

Last update: 2013-10-04