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Born on this Day Under No Illusion
30 January 2015

Under No Illusion

“In considering the ways pictures can trick the eye, we gain insight into the nature and ultimate source of the principles of visual perception,” wrote Roger Shepard, an American cognitive scientist born on this day in 1929. Shepard’s research on spatial relations all began when playing with visual illusions as a child. He analysed people’s reactions and unveiled the mental processes behind them. Going on to grapple with the ‘mental rotation’ phenomenon, he showed that when people compare two objects rotated at various angles, they first reorient the objects in their mind’s eye. This is something we all do at about 60° per second. In the 1950s, Shepard found universal laws that govern how people and animals perceive similarities among colours, sounds and smells. Before him, no one had objectively measured mental imagery. His imaging methods were used in the design of a computer-based diagnostic system for breast and prostate cancers.

Written by Nick Kennedy

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What is BPoD?

BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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BPoD is also available in Catalan at www.bpod.cat with translations by the University of Valencia.