Optical Illusions: The Science of Visual Perception

by Al Seckel

Book Overview

This intriguing collection contains more than 275 optical illusions that appear to change before your eyes. Al Seckel carefully selected both well-known images, such as Shepard's tabletop, Wade's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1554071518
• ISBN13: 9781554071517
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 3.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.9" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

For curious, more deep thinking kinds of kids

My 8 year old son really enjoys this book. It is more grown up than I thought it would be. My son says "it's very fun to follow the instructions and see cool stuff."

Fabulous book for children

I provided this book to an 11 and 13 year old. They have looked at every page over and over again. Fascinated by the images.

Illusions

This is a great book. Very fun for all in the family. Fast shipping.

Nice book, very misleading title.

One of the most beautiful and wonderful books I own is Al Seckel's "Masters of Deception: Escher, Dali & the Artists of Optical Illusions" (2004). Unlike most other books on illusions, the book itself is a creative tour de force. And Seckel supplements his creation with visually striking and important media at his website. I think I've already given away as many as ten copies of that book to family and friends since its release. Another of Seckel's books that I refer to frequently "Incredible Visual Illusions: You won't believe your eyes" (2003). That book has twenty chapters, each containing a different class of illusion. As a sensory scientist who teaches courses on sensation, perception and cognition, I find this book useful because it organizes a nice collection of illusions into meaningful categories that are relevant to me. In this work, as in Seckel's many others, the author acknowledges many renowned vision scientists. I imagine that the book's organization benefited from Seckel's association with these people. Seckel's new book is "Optical Illusions: The Science of Visual Illusions." This is a fine book, with 281 optical illusions (one per page). The book begins with a four page essay on illusions. This is followed 281 pages of illusions, each printed to fill one page. Many of the illusions have been published by Seckel and others previously. A few of the illusions are new. The illustration section is followed by 24 pages containing BRIEF explanations of each illusion. Each explanation is, on average, seven or eight sentences. I have one major criticism of the new book. The title is highly misleading. The book title suggested to me a book that would delve into science, in a scholarly way, at least at the level of a Sensation and Perception undergraduate textbook. I was hoping for something of a sequel to Masters of Deception (e.g., "The Science of Deception"?). However, this book is not about the science of visual perception or of illusions. It is not even about "optical" illusions, as most illusions are explainable in terms of perceptual and cognitive processes beyond simple optics. Sure there are 24 pages of explanation at the very end of the book, but these are generally not deep, satisfying explanations. And there is no reference list that would allow the casual reader to track down important scientific articles. One superb, beautiful resource on the science of visual illusions is Michael Bach's website, "Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena". Bach's dynamic site is visually striking, presenting some great illusions. The explanation of each illusion is accessible to the novice, but detailed enough to satisfy and impress other perceptual scientists. Bach generously acknowledges the artists and scientists associated with each illusion, providing scholarly references in each case. Bach lists and explains scientific controversies regarding many of the illusions. I should add that Bach is a first-rate senso