Monks See Through Optical Illusion Games

FhnuZoag writes "Nature is reporting that Buddhist monks, highly trained in meditation, were better able to maintain focus in a set of computer generated illusions designed to confuse the brain. The particular illusions involved showing different images to each eye, and maintaining a state of motion-induced blindness. This may be scientific proof of the efficacy of meditative study. The full, original article may be downloaded here. (500 KB PDF)"

Comments

This is priceless...

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

Alternatively, we can increase the duration of the disappearance by disrupting teh activity of the Right hemsiphere with precisely time pulses (the Right hemisphere seems to be much more picky about the prcise timing of teh TMS pulse thanthe Left, perhasp associated with the large blocks of time that the Left deals in ).

What the hell? Who wrote this article, Jeff K.?

d00d, this iz teh ghey.

Re:This is priceless...

[chudgoo]

You missed "prcise"

Zen is denial?

[bsdbigot]

Student: Why are the bars horizontal on the left and vertical on the right?
Master: One eye sees truth, one eye sees falsehood.
Student: Which eye is correct?
Master: Neither.

How do they know what the monks saw?

[Momoru]

I think the monks were just lying, dirty lying monks.

Meditating

[Dharma's Dad]

I have had some success meditating, of the school where one trys to clear the mind of thoughts. Looking at the dot animation, trying to "keep the mind quiet" and not re-resolve the yellow dots feels very similar to trying to get the mind to "not think" (although it is easier with the animation, since there is something to "entertain" the mind [the blue dots]).

The way it was explained to me, the mind is afraid it will cease to exist if it is not involved in constant thought or self-conversation.

Meditation if very powerful. A short 5-10 minute session is worth about a two hour nap, in removing tiredness (but only works once, maybe twice, per day). Several guys in the meditation group I was in commented that there is nowhere the mind can "go" with hallucinogens that cannot be attained with meditation - interesting observation.

One of the most surprising things about meditating is that even in the deepest states, one is still completely aware of everything around them, actually moreso than usual. You can stop to answer the door or whatever with no "hangover" as happens when coming out of sleep.

Meditation is definitly worth exploring, if you have any interest. It does not require attachment to any religious beliefs to practice successfully. I have found that most people who are into it are not offended if you want to learn only mediation, even if they practice it in the context their religion.

Thinking changes perception?

[crmartin]

This is interesting.

I've been doing Buddhist practices for damn near 40 years now, and I've noticed it anecdotally: a lot of visual illusions don't seem to work any longer. Now, it's hard to separate that out from being, well, old (remember how as a kid it looked for all the world like the moon was racing along with your car when Mom and Dad drove you somewhere at night?) and perceptual psych is way down the list of things I want to do in my spare time, but it seems completely plausible to me that monks who spend lots more time in these practices than I do would show these effects very strongly.

Exceeding focus of thought is required to write a sentence like that one, I hope you know.

Re:Journey to West

[crmartin]

The Journey to the West is hilarious, you should get the whole thing sometime.

Anyway, it's not that Buddhists distrust the sense themseves: they distrust thoughts about the senses. Those thoughts then can modify the way you perceive the sensory data --- consider watching someone eat, with evident enjoyment, a dark brown semi-liquid substance with a spoon. Your perception of it, down to visceral reactions, is wildly different if you think it's chocolate ice cream or dog poop.

efficacy?

[cahiha]

It's unclear that defeating optical illusions is a good thing. Many optical illusions are just part of the normal functioning of the visual system. In some cases, optical illusions directly aid in the perception of the real world, in other cases, they may not have a function, but are an indication that other processes are working as they should. A completely "literal" (metric, whatever) interpretation is generally not useful, even if you could achieve it.

Re:Sign me up for the monastery

[shawb]

Interestingly enough, I am able to hold the illusion in my left eye for a decent length of time, about half a minute. My right eye can only hold it for about one second, but the illusion reasserts itself rapidly (basically, the other dots flicker at about a one second cycle.) The end result when I am watching with both eyes is that the dots appear translucent. Eventually my vision decouples and I will see two triangles, with one triangle usually missing dots, and the other flickering.

I wonder why this illusion works. I have heard mention that it is because the dots that disapear are in the blind spot in the middle of the eye, but I don't think this would explain losing sight of all three dots. I wonder if it has to do with the model of the brain as a state-change detector. Pre-consciousness (evolutionary times before we were conscious) is primarilly concerned with detecting changes in the environment, and then reacting based on them. Since the yellow dots are not moving, focus on them is lost and they are discarded as extraneous information. Sort of like the antithesis of not seeing a cameflaged object untill it moves.

Meditation would tend to uphold the illusion, as one of the goals is to empty the mind of that which does not matter, possibly allowing the mind to concentrate on what is truly important.