Fractal Fooling

What can you see here? A flower? A small green owl? Fireworks? Rorschach inkblots like this were widely used in the 20th century to assess personality and mental health. Today their use in psychiatry is controversial, but they still have an undeniable power to confuse the mind – why can different people see different things? Analysing the picture’s edges, where the paint bleeds into the paper, researchers found fractals – jagged repeating patterns also found in nature. Rorschach blots with a higher degree of fractals are more open to interpretation. They can fool the brain’s 'fractal fluency', how we spot nature’s patterns to find our way around. Work is underway to develop fractal-based bionic eyes to help partially-sighted patients to spot fractals, improving their vision and navigation. Perhaps then they may be similarly confused by this picture, which is almost certainly of two pink dinosaurs having a cup of tea.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Image from work by R.P.Taylor and colleagues
• Physics Department, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS One, February 2017