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Marco Bertamini

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Marco Bertamini
Born (1966-01-06) 6 January 1966 (age 58)
Vigevano, Italy
NationalityBritish and Italian
Alma materUniversity of Padova
University of Virginia
Known forThe Venus effect; The Honeycomb illusion; Visual holes
Scientific career
FieldsPerception
Aesthetics
Naive Physics
InstitutionsUniversity of Liverpool
University of Padova

Marco Bertamini (born 6 January 1966, in Vigevano, Italy) is a professor of psychology in the Department of General Psychology, of the University of Padova, Italy.[1]

He is most known for discovering the Venus Effect[2] and the Honeycomb Illusion.[3] The latter was a finalist of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest in 2015.[4]

Career

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Marco Bertamini graduated in Experimental Psychology in 1990 from the University of Padova. From 1999 to 2017 he worked at the University of Liverpool where he established the Visual Perception Lab .[5] His research is mainly focused on visual perception, empirical aesthetics and optical illusions.[6]

Research

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Symmetry

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Comparing types of symmetries, Bertamini has described their role in perceptual organisation, using psychophysics, phenomenology,[7] and electrophysiology.[8]

The recently created catalogue of results has over 1 TB of data[9] and is an example of good practice in open science. He also was the co-author of Symmetry in Vision with Lewis Griffin.[10]

Venus effect

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Starting from naive physics he expanded the area into naive optics: children and adults make systematic mistakes in their descriptions of how mirrors work and in their predictions about mirror images. One striking example is the Venus effect, discovered and named by him in 2003.[11]

This painting by Diego Velázquez known as the Rokeby Venus is likely to produce a Venus effect.

The effect consist of the fact that viewers of such paintings have the impression that Venus is admiring her own reflection in the mirror. However the viewer sees the face of Venus in the mirror, and they are not directly behind her, therefore what Venus sees in the reflection cannot be the same as what the viewer sees.[12] This is an effect found in various artworks from many time periods.[13] It has been shown to also work in photographs and real life.[14]

In 2017, this effect was included in the Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions.[15]

Visual illusions

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Marco Bertamini has also been nominated as a top ten finalist for the Best Illusion of the Year Contest in 2015 with the Honeycomb Illusion and in 2018 with Once upon a Time Illusion.[4][16] The honeycomb illusion is an example of a uniform texture not perceived as such, where barbs in the corners of the grid appear clearly visible but only in the segment of the texture that you are directly looking at.[17][18]

Activities and recognition

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In 2015, he was the main organiser of the European Conference in Visual Perception (ECVP)[19] in Liverpool. He is an editor on the following journals: Perception, British Journal of Psychology, and Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

In 2017, he published a book that combines an introduction to visual illusions with an introduction to programming in Python.[20][21]

Bertamini's work on perception has featured in various news articles,[22][23] radio appearances and YouTube videos.[24] Robert Krulwich wrote for NPR about Bertamini's work investigating whether people notice inverted images in films such as Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa.[25] The New York Times has also featured Bertamini's work both regarding mirrors and his criticisms of 'Bite Size' science.[26][27] He has also had appearances on both British (BBC) and Italian (RAI) national radio to talk about his research.[28]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Marco Bertamini". Top Italian Scientists. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  2. ^ Bertamini, Marco (10 February 2020). "Mirrors and the Mind". British Psychological Society. Retrieved 4 July 2024.
  3. ^ Bertamini, M.; Herzog, M.; Bruno, N. (2016). "The Honeycomb illusion: Uniform textures not perceived as such". i-Perception. 7 (4). doi:10.1177/2041669516660727. PMC 5030753. PMID 27698980.
  4. ^ a b "Honeycomb Illusion". IllusionoftheYear.com. 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  5. ^ "Visual Perception Lab". 22 October 1999. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  6. ^ "Marco Bertamini". researchgate.net. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  7. ^ Bertamini, M.; Hulleman, J. (2006). "Amodal completion and visual holes (static and moving)" (PDF). Acta Psychologica. 123 (1–2): 55–72. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2006.04.006. PMID 16905108. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
  8. ^ Bertamini, M.; Silvanto, J.; Norcia, A.M.; Makin, A.D.J.; Wagemans, J. (2018). "The neural basis of visual symmetry and its role in middle and high-level visual processing" (PDF). Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1426 (1): 111–126. doi:10.1111/nyas.13667.
  9. ^ Makin, Alexis David James; Bertamini, Marco; Tyson-Carr, John; Rampone, Giulia; Derpsch, Yiovanna; Wright, Damien; Karakashevska, Elena (7 October 2020). "The complete Liverpool SPN catalogue". Open Science Framework. doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/2SNCJ. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  10. ^ Griffin, Lewis; Bertamini, Marco (18 Sep 2017). Symmetry in Vision. Amazon: MDPI AG. ISBN 978-3038424963.
  11. ^ Bertamini, M.; Latto, R.; Spooner, A. (2003). "The Venus effect: people's understanding of mirror reflections in paintings" (PDF). Perception. 32 (5): 593–599. doi:10.1068/p3418. PMID 12854645. S2CID 33410814. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  12. ^ Ingliss-Arkel, Esther (December 27, 2012). "Why The Venus Effect Has Been Tricking You for Centuries". gizmodo. Retrieved 2024-07-22.
  13. ^ Sacquegna, Dores (8 March 2023). "Venus Effect Exhibition". primopianospecialprojects. PALMIERI FOUNDATION, LECCE. Retrieved 2 July 2024.
  14. ^ Bertamini, Marco; Lawson, Rebecca; Jones, Luke; Winters, Madeline (2010). "The Venus Effect in Real Life and in Photographs" (PDF). Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics. 72 (7): 1948–1964. doi:10.3758/APP.72.7.1948. PMID 20952791.
  15. ^ Shapiro, Arthur; Todorovic, Dejan (15 June 2017). "The Venus Effect". Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions. Goodreads: Oxford University Press Inc. p. 609(5) - 614(6). ISBN 9780199794607.
  16. ^ "Once Upon A Time". IllusionoftheYear.com. 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  17. ^ "Didn't see that coming: The Honeycomb Illusion". cogsci.nl. 2015. Retrieved 1 June 2024.
  18. ^ "Vote for Liverpool psychologist in the Best Illusion of the Year Contest". news.liverpool.ac.uk. 2015. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
  19. ^ "ECVP 2015". Retrieved 2023-09-07.
  20. ^ Programming Visual Illusions for Everyone. Vision, Illusion and Perception. Vol. 2. 2018. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-64066-2. ISBN 978-3-319-64065-5.
  21. ^ Bertamini, M. (2018). "Programming Visual Illusions for everyone". Springer. Vision, Illusion and Perception. 2: 253. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-64066-2. ISBN 978-3319877136.
  22. ^ Abrahams, Marc (26 July 2005). "A hole full of surprises". theguardian.com. Retrieved 2 May 2024.
  23. ^ Griggs, Jessica (15 September 2010). "Brain-hacking art: Twisting mirrors, unreal shadows". newscientist.com. Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  24. ^ Mathôt, Sebastiaan (18 June 2018). "The Honeycomb Illusion". youtube.com. Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  25. ^ Krulwich, Robert (20 October 2011). "No, Not That Left, Your Other Left!". NPR.org. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
  26. ^ Angier, Natalie (22 July 2008). "Mirrors don't lie. Mislead? Oh, Yes". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 June 2023.
  27. ^ Bertamini, Marco; Munafò, Marcus (28 January 2012). "The Perils of 'Bite Size' Science". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
  28. ^ Williams, Mike (28 January 2013). "Mirrors". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 3 July 2024.
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