Update: The placebo effect works even when people know they are taking a placebo

By Alvaro Fernandez | August 27, 2020

Wel­come to a new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing 14 research find­ings, resources and tips for brain health … and start­ing with this fas­ci­nat­ing study: #1. Wow. The place­bo effect works even when peo­ple know they are tak­ing a place­bo #2. Beat­ing Alzheimer’s Dis­ease will require a com­bined physical/ men­tal approach: From the ten fac­tors found…

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Tease your brain with the Hermann Grid illusion

By Caroline Latham | September 24, 2019

Here’s a beau­ti­ful exam­ple of the Her­mann Grid illu­sion in the real-world: You will notice faint white cir­cles appear where the hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal slats inter­sect in the win­dow frame (even if no white cir­cles are there at all!) Her­mann fer­ry port door grid illu­sion :) (?stan­bul) pic.twitter.com/SrnZup6UJ9 — Aysun Ülger (@aysun_ulger) Sep­tem­ber 3, 2019 The Her­mann Grid…

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The Hermann grid optical illusion, explained

By Caroline Latham | May 6, 2016

In this image, do you see some­thing oth­er than black and white? Does it mat­ter if you look direct­ly at one of the black blocks, vs. at one of the inter­sec­tions? While there are real­ly only black blocks and white spaces in the grid, the high con­trast black and white areas fool the eyes into per­ceiv­ing a gray…

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Does perception equal reality? Try this quick optical illusion…

By Dr. Pascale Michelon | February 15, 2016

. At first glance, you prob­a­bly see the nice land­scape. Those branch­es and trees, the water, that cou­ple at the bot­tom right. Now, can you also see the baby? Tricky, isn’t it?! The image above con­tains some ambigu­ous con­tours, cre­at­ing the effect known as a sub­jec­tive or illu­so­ry con­tour. The con­tour of the baby is cre­at­ed by the…

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