SM City Pampanga yesterday officially introduced its newest attraction: the Science of Altered Perception (SOAP), which is open from Mondays to Sundays, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
According to SM City Pampanga Public Relations manager Rain Cervantes, the exhibit brings out the wonders of science, technology, and art through its unique fusion of amazing 3D art displays, optical illusions, and eye-boggling tricks.
“All these entertaining facilities teach us about vision, perception, the human brain and science so it will be easier to perceive why our eyes see things which our brain cannot understand,” she said.
Among SOAP’s attractions are Trick Arts were patrons can “jump in” into a painting and give it a new whole twist; Gadgets Station where 20 interactive gadgets are featured; the Lilac Chaser, which illustrates Troxler fading, complementary colors, negative after-effects, and is capable of showing colors outside the display gamut;
Ruben Vase Illusion which generally presents the viewer with a psychological selection of two interpretations of each of which is valid; Café Wall Illusion, which has helped neuropsychologists study the way in which visual information is processed by the brain; Jastrow Illusion, a size illusion where two curved shapes of identical measurements are placed next to each other. The Ebbinghaus Illusion (sometimes called the “Titchener Illusion”) is an optical illusion of relative size perception. Two circles of identical size are placed near each other and one is surrounded by large circles while the other is surrounded by small circles; the first central circle then appear smaller than the second central circle;
Busy Body, where due to persistence of vision, viewers looking in through the passing slits see each other picture on the strip seem to be suddenly replaced by the next in sequence; the Floating Cube, where the illusion is based on the hollowed face. The illusion relies on the fact that we are reconstructing a 3D word from a 2D representation on a screen;
YES or NO, an optical illusion image which exploits graphical similarities and other properties of visual system interpretation between two or more distinct image forms; Pendulum Wave, a device where witnessing a physics demonstration can inspire students to look more deeply into conceptual nature of the demonstration and strengthen their critical thinking skills; 3D Crossed Eyed, which shows how photography has an inherent limitation in the camera thay typically captures images that have an illusion of three dimensional depth;
Animated illusion, which works the other way around by making the brain think something is moving even when it’s not; Hollow-Face illusion, an optical illusion in which the perception of a concave mask of a face appears as a normal convex face. This illusion reveals the significant role of prior experience, and thus hypotheses or expectations, in theperceptual process;
Mirage, which shows that two types of images exist in nature: real and virtual. A real image is one in which light rays actually come from the image. In a virtual image, they appear to come from the reflected image; Head on a Table, which uses mirrors to create the effect that you have lost your head. When you view this exhibit from a frontal perspective, without anyone standing behind the table, it appears to simply be a room with a table up against the back wall;
Checker Illusion, where the squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray. The visual system needs to determine the color of objects in the world;
True Mirror, where people have different reactions to seeing themselves for the first time; Production : The Illusion Dance Station, which uses green screen and the Chroma effect so visitors can visualize a new out of this world set up even just at a green screen; and Mystery Images (cognitive, literal and Paradox images), where photos are characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not suit with physical measurement of the stimulus source. –Photos by JP Manalang