On the Internet, pictures with optical illusions are common, which neurologists allegedly developed for independent diagnosis of stress levels. We decided to find out if this is so.
"Ball and honeycomb"
This optical illusion is usually distributed with the following signature: “This image was created by a Japanese neurologist. It remains motionless when you are calm. It begins to move when you experience a slight inner excitement. In conditions of severe stress, it moves like a carousel. ” Examples of such posts can be found in Telegram, Facebook and on other platforms.
Most viral posts do not indicate which scientist developed this unusual test for the level of stress, in which university he works and in which scientific journal he presented his results. The authors of some publications only Checkthat this is the discovery of a Japanese psychotherapist (according to another version, neurologist) Yamamoto Hashima. “Verified” failed to find a specialist with this name in the scientific quoting database Google Scholar, the Academic Library of JSTOR and on similar resources.
FACHECHERS FROM LEAD Stories project found outthat for the first time a picture, supposedly helping to determine the level of stress, was published In September 2016 on Twitter (now X). It turned out that it was not created by a Japanese psychotherapist or neurologist, but by Ukrainian designer Yuri Parpadya. His tweet was accompanied by hashtags like #art and #illustration, as well as link On the photobank Shutterstock, where other similar works of the author are available.
“I drew this optical illusion in Adobe Illustrator September 26, 2016. To create it, I used the effect of Akioshi Kitaoki - this is a white and black stroke on a color background, which sets a focus of vision and it seems to a person that the details of the image are moving. The Japanese psychotherapist Yamamoto Hashim has nothing to do with this picture. Moreover, Yamamoto Hashima does not really exist. Google for the sake of interest ” - wrote The plants on Instagram in 2018, when the picture has been spreading through social networks for a year under the guise of an express test for the stress level developed in Japan.
"Snakes"
Akioshi Kitaoka, who was mentioned in his post, appears in numerous publications of users of social networks as the author of other pictures that allow you to determine the level of fatigue. The most popular of them is with circles similar to snakes. “This illusion was invented by the Japanese psychiatrist Akioshi Kitaok. He claims that the illusion is motionless for calm, balanced and rested people. If the illusion is actively moving, then you need a vacation and sleep within eight hours. Well, if the illusion is very, very quickly moves, then you urgently need a vacation in the hospital ... So, we check yourself and, if anything, we start resting, ”the said in post On Facebook, which they shared more than 1000 times. In March 2024, this picture with a similar signature Published In his Telegram channel, adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Anton Gerashchenko (125,000 views at the time of writing this analysis). Another image allegedly created by Chinese to check the level of stress several years ago It has become popular In X. On the "Zen" there is A whole selection The works of the Japanese who supposedly help determine the psychological state of the patient.
Kitaoka, unlike the invented Yamamoto Hashima, is a really psychologist, professor University of Ritzuman in Osaka. He has been engaged in optical illusions since the 1990s: both as a scientist who studies the features of visual perception, and as an artist (he published more than ten Albums of optical illusions, participated in exhibitions, and one of his works was even used in the design of the album of Lady Gaga Artpop).
How Explains Kitaoka himself, his work show the mechanism of illusion of peripheral drift. If a person focuses on an element of the image, his other fragments, visible to peripheral vision, seem to be moving, although in fact they are also static. The illusion most often occurs when the picture consists of areas with different levels of brightness, such as black and dark gray or white and light gray colors. It intensifies if the contours of the image is curved, not straight.
On this principle, the illusion with the “snakes”, popular among users of social networks as an express test to the level of fatigue, is also based. Chinese Created This image is back in 2003.
Together with the statements that these illusions help to determine the level of stress, the work of Kitaoki has been spreading at least from the mid-2000s. On his page on the university website, the professor even collects A collection of such publications. In 2018, on his verified page on Twitter, Kitaook wrote: "Visual illusions have nothing to do with stress."
Thus, the illusions mentioned in this section were indeed created by a Japanese psychologist, but he never claimed that with their help it is possible to determine the level of stress or fatigue.
Illustration on the cover: Yuri Parpadya
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