Perception isn’t reality (and why seeing you’re wrong can make you happier)
Is everything as it appears? We like to imagine our eyes are cameras that take accurate photos of reality, but just like Instagram or Snapchat filters can distort an image, our brain has ways of changing what we see to help us make sense of the world.
If you find this hard to believe, let’s look at some optical illusions to see how the brain can make mistakes. Take this image of a checkerboard. What color is square A? What color is square B?
It seems obvious A is black and B is white, but in reality, they are exactly the same color. Don’t believe me? Check out the image again, now with the two squares connected. You can see there is no change in color as you go from A to B. What you interpret as color isn’t just the brightness of the square, but how it looks relative to those next to it.
It’s not just color, the brain can make up all kinds of differences that aren’t really there. For example, which line is longer, the one on the left or right?
In fact, they are the same length. It’s hard to believe, but if you measure you’ll see they are exactly the same. At least you can be sure both are really lines, but sometimes you can’t even take that for granted. How many triangles do you see in this image?
In fact, there are no triangles! Your brain is great at spotting patterns and looks for the simplest explanation for what it sees. Here it assumes a white triangle must be blocking our view of the three circles and another triangle beneath it.
Perhaps this affects triangles, but surely not more complex pictures. Well, take this image of a duck looking to the left.
I’m sorry, I meant to say a rabbit looking to the right. Try looking at the image again. Here we see that expectations impact what you see. It’s possible to see either the duck or the rabbit, but not at the same time. Your brain flips back and forth because it wants to categorize it as one or the other.
Why is it so easy to trick our brains? You might think that natural selection would favor creatures with really accurate vision, but it turns out speed matters just as much. That’s why your brain takes shortcuts. If you see something in the bushes you need to figure out quickly if it might be a lion. You do not need to render the details of every hair like the CGI in the latest Lion King movie, which is very realistic but took months to develop.
For the most part our brain gets it right, but we should always be a little suspicious of what it tells us. These shortcuts don’t just affect vision; your brain is also looking for simple explanations when processing emotions and experiences.
Why does this matter? Sometimes the brain can get sick and these shortcuts make the brain think bad things about ourselves that are not true. This can lead to depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a type of mental health treatment that helps people recognize and change harmful thinking patterns that negatively impact their emotions. There are many common shortcuts that affect everyone called cognitive distortions.
For example, just like when trying to spot a hidden lion, we expect to see bad things in case there is something that can hurt us. Like the duck and rabbit, what we expect is what we see. This is called the negativity bias. For example, you might fixate on one critical comment from a friend and forget all the supportive conversations you've had.
We often generalize and assume everything is part of a bigger pattern, causing us to see a triangle that isn’t really there. Or worse, take one social rejection as a sign no one likes us, even when there is evidence of so many other people who care.
It is easy to maximize or minimize, like the lines that turned out to be the same length. You might think one competition, recital, or test is the most important thing in the world, but when you put it into perspective it’s just another day like any other.
Another cognitive distortion is all-or-nothing thinking, like “If I don’t get into Harvard, I’ll be a failure!” This is just like the checkerboard where we see each square as either black or white by comparing it to the others around it, even though the squares were exactly the same shade of gray.
All of these shortcuts are natural ways the brain tries to make sense of the world, but they can become overwhelming if we never take a step back and question them. So remember: perception isn’t reality. Try yourself, can you think of a situation that turned out to be different than your first impression? We all experience highs and lows, but appreciating all the shades of gray in between and recognizing the ways we jump to conclusions can help us realize the world is much more beautiful than can be captured with any camera.
Disclaimer – This article is not intended to serve as professional advice for mental health disorders. If you or someone you know is suffering from mental health problems, please reach out to a licensed professional who can help.
Photo Credits:
Figure 1: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Checker_shadow_illusion.svg
Original: Edward H. Adelson, vectorized by Pbroks13., CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Figure 2: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Grey_square_optical_illusion_proof2.svg
Original by Edward H. Adelson, Copyrighted free use, via Wikimedia Commons
Figure 3: This image of simple geometry is ineligible for copyright and therefore in the public domain, because it consists entirely of information that is common property and contains no original authorship.
Figure 4: By Fibonacci - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1788215
Popular Science Monthly Volume 54 (Jastrow, Joseph: "The Mind's Eye", p.299-312)
Edited by Emma Hays
