Led by physicist Dr Richard Taylor, a team from the University of Oregon developing bionic eyes has used the Rorschach inkblot tplates to test for visual association, information and analysis.{{quote-A:R-W:450-I:2-Q: These optical illusions, seen in inkblots and sometimes in art, are important for understanding the human visual syst, -WHO:Dr Richard Taylor, Director of the UO Materials Science Institute}}Taylor, the director of the UO Materials Science Institute, said inkblot images confuse the visual cortex – which is why it’s possible for people to see different ‘pictures’ in the patterns – because they are fractals.Fractals are patterns that repeat thselves across different scales and are often found in nature in the form of seashells, trees, snowflakes, waterfalls etc. The research is hoping to use the inkblots to understand the way normal vision is processed in order to utilise it in the creation of a working bionic eye.“These optical illusions, seen in inkblots and sometimes in art, are important for understanding the human visual syst,” Taylor said.“You learn important things from when our eyes get fooled. Fractal patterns in the inkblots are confusing the visual syst. Why do you detect a bat or a butterfly when they were never there?”Once Taylor confirmed the tests were fractals, he was able to run a test that allowed him to quantify how complicated the patterns were and assign th a grading known as a D value.He then compared these D values with the number of differing images psychologists had recorded patients seeing for each famous inkblot, in the process establishing the theory that the more fractal complexity an image had, the fewer images people claimed to spot.The research also has an Australian connection.{{image4-a:r-w:300}}After the initial research stage, the team next put their findings to a human test by generating computerised fractal patterns with varying D values. When seen for 10 seconds by undergraduate psychology students at the University of New South Wales, the same trend surfaced.According to Taylor, this is significant because as alluded to earlier, complicated fractals are everywhere in the natural world.“All of our studies are highlighting an effect called fractal fluency and the eye has evolved to efficiently process the fractal patterns found in nature’s scenery,” Taylor said.“If you don’t build fractal fluency into a bionic eye, not only have you lost the ability to navigate, you’ve also lost that symbiotic relationship with nature’s fractal patterns,” Taylor added, as he explained that the human visual syst had evolved to identify things even in images that are incredibly fractal rich.“Given that we have this intimate relationship with nature’s fractals and we can easily process th, it’s kind of strange that these fractals are fooling the visual syst. I’m really interested from that point of view. Why is our natural eye getting fooled by this?” Taylor said.Currently, the electronic chips in Taylor’s bionic eyes don’t take in as much visual information as our natural eyes and as a result produce images with a lower D value, making misinformation a real concern.Therefore, should he solve the riddle it could go a long way toward a successful bionic eye.
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