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Visual illusions

Professor Richard Gregory, CBE, FRS

Illusions of vision are insights into the brain and mind. They are strange, sometimes dramatic phenomena that may be dangerous or useful, and with experiments they can tell us a lot about perception. They show that perceptions are indirectly related to physical reality. Perception itself is a creative process for creating hypotheses - not always correct - about the objects we live with. How do brain-hypotheses of perception (our sense of reality) relate to the hypotheses of science?

Professor Richard Gregory, CBE, FRS is Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Bristol where he has been since 1970, also as Director of the Brain and Perception Laboratory of the Medical School. His main work has been in developing a general account of visual perception, with special emphasis on a variety of phenomena, including various 'illusions' for suggesting and testing theories of brain mechanisms and cognitive processes. He has invented a hearing aid and a number of optical and recording instruments, as well as designing (with Sir Roland Penrose and Sir Ernst Gombrich) a major art exhibition at the ICA. Also with Gombrich he edited Illusion in Nature and Art. Other publications include: Eye and Brain, OUP, 1997; Mirrors in the Mind, Penguin, 1998; The Oxford Companion to the Mind, OUP, 1987.

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