Are you thinking the same?

Get involved with some demonstrations relating to Bruce's third lecture all about our social brains.

Who's watching who?

The hollow face illusion is one of our favourites; as even when you know it's an illusion, it still works. Here's Stephen Fry demonstrating the illusion on Qi with the same Albert Einstein face used in the Lecture.

Your brain is so used to seeing faces sticking out that you find it difficult to see the face sticking inwards. This gives the strange impression that it is following you round the room as you move. 

You can make your own hollow dragon face like in the following video.

The template and instructions can be found on the Grand Illusions website.

Prof Zombie-Brain Cox

Does this familiar face look strange to you? Play the video to see what we've done to Brian Cox.

Just like we're used to faces that stick outwards we're also used to recognising faces that are upright. Our brains process the information about the eyes and mouth (which are the right way round) and so we miss the extreme expression until the face is turned. This illusion is often called the 'Thatcher illusion' after vision scientist Peter Thompson made a version using the former prime minister’s face.                                   

The Flashed Face distortion effect

Here's another rather disturbing face illusion discovered recently by accident by an undergraduate student in Australia.

Sean Murphy was preparing some images for an identification experiment when he noticed the odd distortion effect. The research team are now doing further tests to try and work out what’s going on.

Feeling happy?

Try this: pout your mouth whilst holding a pencil in your lips. How do you feel? Turn the pencil so that it points to the side and hold it between your teeth. Now how do you feel? Try the test again, whilst watching the following video.

Emotions help to bind us together socially. Laughing together builds the bonds of friendship. What's interesting is that just recreating positive body language will make our brains think we are happier. For example, when scientists got people to read comics whilst forcing a smile they found the comics funnier. 

Watch the Lectures

You can watch all of Bruce's CHRISTMAS LECTURES^® on BBC iPlayer and right here on the Ri channel.