Beau Lotto showed how our brain perceives different perspectives with optical illusions through his TED talk “Optical Illusions Show How We See”. He talked about the sociology of color and objects from different set ups can create the same figure.
Lotto’s organized presentation started and ended the same, with an experiment followed by a question. It proved to be effective because the audience enjoyed the experiments and his explanations of why it turned out the way it did. With every experiment he gave, he demonstrated the outcome and explained how it related to the question “Why is it context?” The majority of his experiments were dots that were formed with different lights to create the same color. It was funny because after every experiment, a loud “OHHHH” followed. The analysis that he gave was very reflective. With quotes such as “We are defined by ecology”, “Color enables us to see the similarities and differences”, and “The same image can have a number of different realizations”. The quotes he gave allowed me to think deeper about the importance about why it is context. He made some funny statements; one was during the experiment with bees. He said when the bee would drink the sugar water, it would throw up and there’s the honey. TED talks always need a few humorous comments; it shows the presenter has many different viewpoints within his topic. One technique I had never seen in a TED talk before was end with a cliffhanger; Lotto showed the boards with the colors again and said, “Was that an illusion?” This effective technique leaves the question and experiment in their minds and motivates them to learn more.
Lotto emphasized that we are not the only animals that see the meaning of colors. Bumblebees, with only one million brain cells - 250 times fewer than human retinas - are able to recognize faces, count to five, and use colors to solve patterns. Lotto showed a video of the experiment with the bees inside of a Plexiglas cage with colored dots representing flowers. The bees were supposed to go to the blue flowers because they had sugar water inside; although the bees wouldn’t always go to the blue flowers, they would go where the other bees went. Their brains could also recognize that green light on a blue flower would still mean the flower was blue. This is amazing that bees have some of the ability as humans, is remarkable for an animal their size. Color is more than just color, it is also music. Lotto showed two experiments where color was associated with music. In the first experiment, a man had a camera that played different sounds for different colors. The man’s objective was to find a plate in the room with his eyes closed. With the camera he moved it across the floor, listened to the different sounds, recognized a pattern and found the plate. The second experiment involved colorful children’s collages translated into music and played by an orchestra. This opens up many new perspectives to music and color. Every time I will look at an image my brain will think of sounds for the different colors. It makes you think were some of the works of Picasso and Van Gogh representing music or even some architecture in Europe.
Perspective is everything, it makes you think and come to different conclusions about simple things in the world. In art, it makes you think inside of the artists head, what do they want us to see or think. Since I live in Highlands Ranch, every time we drive I always see the logo of a hawk on signs. When I was little, I thought the hawk was a character from the Dr. Seuss books I had read. Now, I can still see the same image I saw as little kid; since that image has always been embedded in my mind, it will never go away. Education is perspective too, in school students constantly question and see things a different way. Perspective is what makes education interesting; it is what makes learning interactive. Novels we read have many different viewpoints and messages that pertain to different people. For instance, Lord of the Flies can be taken many different ways with different opinions about the message William Golding is providing. One question that was asked in the first semester of English was, what does it take to challenge the system? For the final, we wrote an essay about characteristics of challenging the system and everyone had something different to say. Yes, many people said similar characteristics, but everybody had different perspectives on the characteristics used to challenge the system. Perspective is also important within the United States government; political parties have different perspectives on the government. None of the perspectives are wrong and one is not better than the other. In history we have benefited from different parties in control at different times, both have played influential roles. We have had some great presidents from both parties, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. They both led us through some of the toughest challenges our country has ever faced. We needed different perspectives to abolish slavery, lead us out of the Great Depression and win World War II. That’s what’s great about the United States, our democratic state enables us to elect the party that we feel will be most beneficial for our government during the crisis or situation we are facing. Perspective will be important in the future, especially since some of the predictions aren’t so positive. Some of the books we read by Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451, and the short story “The Pedestrian” - give a prediction of the world in a couple of decades from now. Bradbury predicts that books will be eliminated, that is starting to become a reality as Borders is going through bankruptcy and closing many of their stores. The companies need find a way to showcase and give different perspectives on the benefits of books. I can’t imagine someone reading their child to bed with an iPad, it just isn’t the same. Although many companies such as Nike, Adidas and Apple are succeeding because they are always coming up with new ideas and staying on the cutting edge. They add different perspectives to their products with color and design that make people want to buy their products. We could be headed to the world of Fahrenheit 451, or it could be similar to today; if we don’t want the situation to look like the end of the movie Wall-E, then people with different perspectives will guide us away from the path leading to a black hole. Youtube video (TED)
Image (Highlands)
Works Cited
Highlands Ranch Welcome Sign. Digital image. Highlands Ranch Houses For Sale. Web. 1 May 2011. <http://www.highlandsranchhousesforsale.com/images/Highlands%20Ranch%20welcome%20sign.JPG>.
TED Talks Director. "YouTube - Beau Lotto: Optical Illusions Show How We See." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 8 Oct. 2009. Web. 02 May 2011. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf5otGNbkuc>.
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