MRCPsych on the Go: Revision Essentials

8. Why Our Eyes Deceive Us: Visual Illusions, Pareidolia and the Brain

Aalap Asurlekar Season 1 Episode 8

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0:00 | 14:18

Your brain is not a camera. It is an active interpreter, constantly making predictions and filling in gaps. And sometimes it gets things spectacularly wrong.

In this episode, we explore how the brain constructs visual perception and where that process breaks down. We cover optical illusions, pareidolia, perceptual errors and Richard Gregory's constructivist theory of perception, which argues that seeing is always an act of inference rather than passive recording.

Ideal for MRCPsych Part A revision, psychology students and anyone intrigued by the tricks the brain plays on us. Aligned with the Royal College of Psychiatrists MRCPsych Part A syllabus, paragraph 1.1.2.

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