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'Mona Lisa Effect' Is Real But Doesn't Apply To Leonardo's Painting (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: There have long been anecdotal reports that the eyes of the Mona Lisa -- Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting -- sometimes seem to follow viewers as they move around the artwork. The phenomenon is even called the "Mona Lisa effect" because of it. But a new study published in the journal i-Perception found that she's really "looking" to the right-hand side of her audience. "There is no doubt about the existence of the Mona Lisa effect," the authors wrote. "It just does not occur with the Mona Lisa herself."
This was a small study, with just 24 subjects. All were asked to look at a high-resolution recreation of the Mona Lisa on a computer monitor, with a folding ruler placed between them and the screen to track viewing distance. Subjects would signal where they perceived Mona Lisa's gaze met the ruler. The researchers sampled 15 sections of the famous portrait, ranging from the Mona Lisa's full head to just her eyes and nose, and they showed subjects each image three times in random order. They also changed the ruler's distance from the monitor halfway through the sessions. Based on the more than 2,000 individual assessments, they found no evidence of the Mona Lisa effect with Leonardo's masterpiece. "We demonstrated that Mona Lisa gazes to her left-hand side [the viewer's right] from about 35.5 cm inside pictorial space, and 14.4 degrees to the viewer's right-hand side in real space," the authors wrote. "Thus, Mona Lisa does not fulfill the premise of the Mona Lisa effect. She does not gaze at the viewer."
This was a small study, with just 24 subjects. All were asked to look at a high-resolution recreation of the Mona Lisa on a computer monitor, with a folding ruler placed between them and the screen to track viewing distance. Subjects would signal where they perceived Mona Lisa's gaze met the ruler. The researchers sampled 15 sections of the famous portrait, ranging from the Mona Lisa's full head to just her eyes and nose, and they showed subjects each image three times in random order. They also changed the ruler's distance from the monitor halfway through the sessions. Based on the more than 2,000 individual assessments, they found no evidence of the Mona Lisa effect with Leonardo's masterpiece. "We demonstrated that Mona Lisa gazes to her left-hand side [the viewer's right] from about 35.5 cm inside pictorial space, and 14.4 degrees to the viewer's right-hand side in real space," the authors wrote. "Thus, Mona Lisa does not fulfill the premise of the Mona Lisa effect. She does not gaze at the viewer."
HAHAHA moving eyes isnt the mona lisa effect.
Definitions evolve from at-the-time well known but ultimately poor examples, I guess.
We have Donald Trump to talk about, the minstrel poet president spouting beautiful fiction at every turn. Alas America you need your wall! Mexico doesn't want your refugees when the deal goes wrong. You're fired!
But Google, Facebook, and pretty much everyone else is these days.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ace of Base is gay
..and we just never heard about them until this internet thing happened, or is such a 'study' now a requirement for graduation somewhere - and a lot of stuff like this is the result? I ask because these smaller type studies seem to be posted a lot lately, and sometimes they are interesting. Maybe someone should do a study.
I thought the Mona Lisa effect was, that you perceive that the painting's gaze is following you... which the Mona Lisa probably does fulfill.
If many people take the test and find that the perception of the gaze is always about the same relative to the viewer then it would seem that the gaze does follow the viewer... even if it is not directed directly at the viewer, it would give the viewer the feeling of being watched but not stared at.
The Mona Lisa is the Laurel/Yanni of their day. And we all know it said laurel.
Ah, the "mona lisa". ...and, in RGB. ...and back-lit
Well, a flat photograph of the mona lisa.
Well, a digitized and compressed and substantially shrunken photograph of the mona lisa.
Ah, the "viewer".
Well, from a seated position.
In a poorly-lit room.
Ah, "follows".
Well, with a calibrated reference-object in the way.
Sample size doesn't matter when you're measuring something completely different anyway.
I love that people think pictures are the things that they picture. They are not. That's not the mona lisa, and it's not the Hindenburg. It's a picture of the mona lisa, and it's a picture of the Hindenburg -- well, no more than half of it.
I’ve heard about paintings where the eyes seem to follow one around the room - that’s nothing new. But, until today, I’d never heard the term “Mona Lisa effect”. And using DuckDuckGo and Google to search on this phrase doesn’t turn up much - except news stories about this paper, and the paper itself.
Had anyone here heard the phrase “Mona Lisa effect” prior to a week or two ago?
#DeleteChrome
stupid comparison is stupid.
1. This is a well-known and understood effect caused by the image being 2D. Works even better with feet that are pointing at the viewer.
2. No gallery guide or lecturer who has referred to it (and there's been quite a few) in my hearing has ever called it the "Mona Lisa effect".
3. Anyone who's looked at the Mona Lisa knows she's not looking outwards at them.
4. This "study" was a total waste of time and whatever money was spent on it.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
News for the masses, Stuff that clicks.
Sad, really.
I get the distinct feel that that 90% of the readers 15 years ago were smarter than 100% of the editors now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
So an effect that was first observed on the Mona Lisa and named after it now "doesn't refer to the Mona Lisa".
And we proved it by taking something that's not the Mona Lisa (instead it's an image on a VDU) and showing that the effect disappears in this case.
Fucking pseudo-scientific bullshit waste of time. The Mona Lisa effect is present on the Mona Lisa by definition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The Mona Lisa has changed several time with the Mandela Effect.
Perhaps once the eyes did follow you.
I sure as hell remember the Mona Lisa having an enigmatic smile!
"It was cool that the whole team got to go into the Oval Office. Last time,
only about 10 or 15 guys - the team captains, three or four other players, and
the coaches got to go," Renfrow said. "This time Trump brought all of the
players in, and it was cool seeing that. The whole front lawn of the White
House was covered in snow, and there was one 30x30 patch of grass and Trump
actually landed right in front of the White House on that green part at 5:40.
We were all huddled up around the windows taking videos, so it was pretty
cool."
Due to the government shutdown, the President bought fast food for the team,
something that Renfrow also embraced.
"I get to tell my kids that I ate a Big Mac in the White House that Donald
Trump personally bought," Renfrow said. "I guess with the government shut down
they're short on stuff. He said he personally bought all the food."
The team learned about the buffet during the trip to Washington.
"A lot of us were on the bus on the way to Greenville, and we saw where Trump
was saying we were going to have McDonalds and Dominos and Burger King, so we
were all getting excited about that because we get to tell our kids that we ate
a Big Mac and a Whopper in the White House and that's something you can tell
everyone forever," he said.
"I loved it. I think it was just like Coach Swinney because he would do
something like that. I feel like Coach Swinney talked all year long about we're
just raggedy old Tigers so we got some raggedy old food. I don't think anybody
was talking about the food two years ago when we went. I can't remember what we
had. It's a unique story and something we were a part of, and I think the team
enjoyed it."
Like his time on the field, Renfrow enjoyed and savored his time in the Oval
Office.
"I think last night on the plane I could sense the excitement of everyone. Like
I said before, because everyone got to go in the Oval Office, I think it meant
a lot to people because some of the most important decisions in the world are
made in that office," he said. "To have Trump to be that hospitable. I was
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often and she was like, 'No, we're completely winging it right now. He doesn't
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https://www.tigernet.com/story...
Take a portrait photo and black out the little white reflection in the pupil. Voila. The eyes will appear to follow you.
If Mona Lisa's eyes are always "14.4 degrees to the viewer's right-hand side in real space" even as they move around the room aren't they still following you?
The Mona Lisa is painted with an oil-based medium. Presumably, that gives it some degree of depth. Moving around in the room with the painting could be quite different than viewing a static image of the painting on a computer monitor. It's possible that peaks and valleys in the paint play tricks with the light and shadows as someone moves around the room. This wouldn't happen on a monitor.
That said, I'd imagine the lighting in the display is such that shadows and the like may not be an issue, but that seems like it's a fairly big assumption to make if one is conducting and publishing a study.
So let me get this straight. The Mona Lisa Effect is real, except in the one place where it absolutely, 100%, must be real in order to be real, and called the Mona Lisa Effect.
Next up: A serving of Jumbo Shrimp, Deep-fried Kale, Tofurky, ending with Baked Alaska. Anyone up for the fried peanut butter sandwich appetizers?
my dad knew about the following eyes, he pointed me to a lot of paintings that did that, although i never knew it was called the 'mona lisa effect'.
he was an artist himself, he probably knew the secret because he made several paintings that did the same.
one thing though, it doesn't work with a photo of the painting, don't know why, but if these researchers used a photo shown on a monitor to reach their conclusions, it wouldn't have worked.
can't ask him for more info about it anymore since he died more then 15 years ago.
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.