Pyllusion

Visual illusions are fascinating phenomena that have been used and studied by artists and scientists for centuries, leading to important discoveries about how conscious perception is generated by the brain. Instead of crafting them by hand, Pyllusion offers a framework to manipulate and generate illusions in a systematic way.

The parametric approach implemented in this software proposes to describe illusions using a set of parameters, such as for instance the difference and illusion strength. These two parameters can be modulated to independently impact either the objective difference of the core components of the illusion (e.g., the difference between the two segments in the Müller-Lyer illusion) or the intensity of the illusion effect (e.g., the angle of the “distractors” arrows).

Describing illusions using a set of parameters aims at fostering reproducible science, allowing neuroscientists to easily report, generate and manipulate similar stimuli regardless of the display format and software.

PsychoPy Integration

Pyllusion can be easily integrated into PsychoPy for running experiments as well!

psychopy_example--1-

Installation

pip install https://github.com/RealityBending/Pyllusion/zipball/master

Contribution

You have some ideas? Want to improve things, add new illusions, and help
us shake people’s brain? Let us know, we would be very happy to have you
on board :relaxed:.

Citation

You can cite the package as follows:

Makowski, D., Pham, T., Lau, Z. J. (2020). Pyllusion: A Parametric Framework to Generate Visual Illusions using Python. GitHub. 
Retrieved from https://github.com/RealityBending/Pyllusion

Features

Delboeuf Illusion

The Delboeuf
illusion
is an
optical illusion of relative size perception, where circles of identical
size appear as different because of their surrounding context. The
illusion was named for the Belgian philosopher, mathematician,
experimental psychologist, hypnotist, and psychophysicist Joseph Remi
Leopold Delboeuf (1831–1896), who created it in 1865.

import pyllusion as ill

parameters = ill.delboeuf_parameters(illusion_strength=3)
ill.delboeuf_image(parameters)

README_delboeuf1

Ebbinghaus Illusion

The Ebbinghaus
illusion
is an
optical illusion of relative size perception, where circles of identical
size appear as different because of their surrounding context (the right
red circle appears as smaller). The illusion was named after its creator
the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), though it got
popularized by Edward B. Titchener in a 1901 textbook of experimental
psychology.

parameters = ill.ebbinghaus_parameters(illusion_strength=2)
ill.ebbinghaus_image(parameters)

README_ebbinghaus1

Müller-Lyer illusion Illusion

The Müller-Lyer
illusion
is
an optical illusion causing the participant to perceive two segments as
being of different length depending on the shape of the arrows. The
illusion was named after its creator the erman sociologist Franz Carl
Müller-Lyer (1857–1916) in 1889.

parameters = ill.mullerlyer_parameters(illusion_strength=30)
ill.mullerlyer_image(parameters)

README_mullerlyer1

Ponzo Illusion

The Ponzo illusion
is an optical illusion of relative size perception, where horizontal
lines of identical size appear as different because of their surrounding
context (the top line appear as longer, as it is interepreted as being
in the distance). The illusion was named after its creator the Italian
psychologist Mario Ponzo (1882–1960) in 1911, who suggested that the
human mind judges an object’s size based on its background.

parameters = ill.ponzo_parameters(illusion_strength=20)
ill.ponzo_image(parameters)

README_ponzo1

Vertical–horizontal Illusion

The vertical–horizontal
illusion

illustrates the tendency for observers to overestimate the length of a
vertical line relative to a horizontal line of the same length (Shipley
et al., 1949).

parameters = ill.verticalhorizontal_parameters(illusion_strength=90)
ill.verticalhorizontal_image(parameters)

README_verticalhorizontal1

Zöllner Illusion

The Zöllner
illusion
is an
optical illusion, where horizontal lines are perceived as not parallel
because of their background. It is named after its discoverer, the
German astrophysicist Johann Karl Friedrich Zöllner in 1860.

parameters = ill.zollner_parameters(illusion_strength=75)
ill.zollner_image(parameters)

README_zollner1

Rod and Frame Illusion

The Rod and frame
illusion

is an optical illusion causing the participant to perceive the rod to be
oriented congruent with the orientation of the frame.

parameters = ill.rodframe_parameters(illusion_strength=11)
ill.rodframe_image(parameters)

README_rodframe1

Poggendorff Illusion

The Poggendorff
illusion
is an
optical illusion that involves the misperception of the position of one
segment of a transverse line that has been interrupted by the contour of
an intervening structure. It is named after Johann Christian Poggendorff
who discovered in Zöllner’s illusion after 1860. The magnitude of the
illusion depends on the properties of the obscuring pattern and the
nature of its borders.

parameters = ill.poggendorff_parameters(illusion_strength=-50)
ill.poggendorff_image(parameters)

README_poggendorff1

Simultaneous Contrast illusion

A neutral gray target will appear lighter or darker than it does in
isolation when compared to, respectively, a dark gray or light gray
target. Simultaneous
contrast
, identified
by Michel Eugène Chevreul, refers to the manner in which the colors of
two different objects affect each other.

In the image here, the two inner rectangles are exactly the same shade
of grey, but the upper one appears to be a lighter grey than the lower
one due to the background provided by the outer rectangles.

parameters = ill.contrast_parameters(illusion_strength=-50)
ill.contrast_image(parameters)

README_contrast1

White Illusion

White’s illusion
is a brightness illusion in which rectangles of the same grey color are
perceived of different luminance depending on their background.

parameters = ill.white_parameters(illusion_strength=100)
ill.white_image(parameters)

README_white1

Kanizsa Square

The Kanizsa Square is an illusory
contour
illusion. See
Keane et al.,
2019
.

  • TO DO (consider helping!)

Autostereograms

Autostereograms are
images made of a pattern that is horizontally repeated (with slight
variations) which, when watched with the appropriate focus, will
generate an illusion of depth.

For instance, in the image below, the autostereogram automatically
adds a guide (you can disable it by setting guide=False), the two red
dots. Look at them and relax your eyes until you see a new red dot
between them two. Then, try focusing on this new red dot until it gets
very sharp and until your eyes stabilize. You should then be able to
perceive the letters 3D as carved in the figure

It can take a bit of time to “get there”, but once you are used to it,
it’s a mind-blowing experience ?

ill.autostereogram(stimulus="3D", width=1600, height=900)

README_autostereogram1

The function is highly customisable, and we can use a black and white
image as a depth mask (in this case, the picture of a
skull

that you will see as emerging from the background), and customise the
pattern used by providing another function (here, the image_circles()
function to which we can provide additional arguments like blackwhite,
the number of circles n, their size range and their transparency with
alpha).

depthmask

ill.autostereogram(stimulus="docs/img/depthmask.png",
                   pattern=ill.image_circles,
                   color="blackwhite",
                   alpha=0.75,
                   size_min=0.005,
                   size_max=0.03,
                   n=1000)

README_autostereogram2

Pareidolia

Pareidolia is the tendency to incorrectly perceive of a stimulus as an
object pattern or meaning known to the observer. Liu et
al. (2014)
,
in their study “Seeing Jesus in toast”, famously (the study got
awarded an Ignobel prize) investigated the correlates of face pareidolia
by blending images of faces with noise-like images.

Blending of images can be achieved:

ill.pareidolia(pattern="docs/img/snake.png", 
               n=[20, 300, 4000], 
               sd=[4, 2, 1], 
               weight=[3, 2, 1],
               alpha=80,
               blur=0.5)

README_pareidolia

Transparency From Motion (TFM)

In visual perception, the kinetic depth
effect
refers to
the phenomenon whereby the three-dimensional structural form of an
object can be perceived when the object is moving (Wallach & O’Connell,
1953; Mamassian & Wallace,
2010
). One
of its derivative is the Transparency-From-Motion illusion,
consisting in the superposition of two dot clouds moving in different
directions that results in the perception of two transparent layers (See
; Schütz,
2014
;
Wexler et al.,
2015
; Schütz
& Mamassian,
2016
and
http://lab-perception.org/demo/p/tfm for a demo).

parameters = ill.motiontransparency_parameters(angle=45)
images = ill.motiontransparency_images(parameters)

ill.images_to_gif(images, path="Transparency_From_Motion.gif", fps=parameters["FPS"])

README_TFM1

Pinna illusion

See also Zeljic et al.,
2021
.

  • TO DO (consider helping!)

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References

Bertamini, M. (2017). Programming visual illusions for
everyone
.
Springer.

GitHub