Ames Room Illusion

Experience how a person walking back or forth grows and shrinks before your very eyes in this incredible room of illusions.

Ames room illusion.

This entry was posted in cognitive psychology fun facts and optical illusions and tagged ames room ames room illusion attention perception philip zimbardo visual illusion on april 13 2012 by wip. Introduction the ames room illusion is supposedly caused by the distorted room seen in the picture below which is named after the american ophthalmologist adelbert ames jr who first constructed such a room in 1935. In 1946 and constructed in the following year. In one corner a giant in the other a miniature.

He based his design on a concept originally conceived by hermann helmholtz in the late 19th century. An ames room is viewed with one eye through a peephole through the peephole the room appears to be an ordinary rectangular cuboid with a back wall. To the audience it looks as an ordinary room but it is cleverly distorted so that visitors experience an amazing visual illusion. An ames room is a distorted room that creates an optical illusion likely influenced by the writings of hermann helmholtz citation needed it was invented by american scientist adelbert ames jr.

Upon viewing people or objects within an ames room there is a loss of normal perspective.