Eclectic Memes

It seems that children are not as visually gullible as their parents.

VISUAL ILLUSION STUMPS ADULTS BUT NOT KIDSFinding suggests that sensitivity to visual context develops slowly By Bruce Bower Web edition : Friday, November 20th, 2009 Text Size EnlargeSIZE DISGUISED In a new study of visual abilities, researchers asked volunteers to identify the biggest orange circle. Here, each orange circle on the right is 2 percent larger than the one on the left. Misleading images usually fooled adults but not children, while helpful images greatly aided adults but not kids.M. DohertySometimes seeing means deceiving before believing, depending on your age. Children and adults size up objects differently, giving youngsters protection against a visual illusion that bedevils their elders, a new study suggests.This unusual triumph of kids over grown-ups suggests that the brain’s capacity to consider the context of visual scenes, and not just focus on parts of scenes, develops slowly, say psychologist Martin Doherty of the University of Stirling in Scotland and his colleagues. Even at age 10, children lack adults’ attunement to visual context, Doherty’s team concludes in a paper published online November 12 in Developmental Science.

via Visual Illusion Stumps Adults But Not Kids – Science News.

The implications of this study are significant for a number of reasons. The one that most interests me is the suggestion that visual interpretation is learned in much the same way as language. This research suggests that we have some innate capacity to interpret images, but somehow we lose the ability to see ‘truth’ and the brain develops faulty, but one assumes evolutionarily advantageous, heuristics for visual interpretation.