Best Illusion of the Year Contest

Best Illusion of the Year Contest
Awarded forContributions that promote public understanding of illusory perception and cognition
CountryUnited States
Presented byNeural Correlate Society
First awarded2005
Websiteillusionoftheyear.com

The Best Illusion of the Year Contest is an annual recognition of the world's illusion creators awarded by the Neural Correlate Society.[1] The contest was created in 2005 by professors Susana Martinez-Conde[2] and Stephen Macknik[3] as part of the European conference on Visual Perception in La Coruna, Spain.[4] It has since transitioned to an online contest where everyone in the world is invited to submit illusions and vote for the winner.

The contest decides on the most impressive perceptual or cognitive illusion of the year (unpublished, or published no earlier than the year prior to the most recent competition). An illusion is a perceptual or cognitive experience that does not match the physical reality (i.e. the perception of motion where no such motion physically exists).

As human experience is generated indirectly by brain mechanisms that interact with the physical reality, the study of illusions offers insight into the neural bases of perception and cognition. The community includes neuroscientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, and visual artists that create illusions to help discover the neural underpinnings of illusory perception.

The Best Illusion of the Year Contest consists of three stages: submission, initial review, and voting of winners. The initial review is conducted by a panel of judges who are world experts in the science, art, and science education. The judge panel narrows the submissions to the Top Ten finalists, and viewers from all over the world can vote for the winner online. The top three winners receive cash awards.

Neural Correlate Society

[edit]

The Neural Correlate Society (NCS) is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization that promotes research into the neural basis of perception and cognition.[5] The organization serves a community of neuroscientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists, and artists who use a variety of methods to help discover the underpinnings of the human experience.

The NCS hosts a variety of events, including the Best Illusion of the Year Contest, that highlight important new discoveries to the public.

Champions of Illusion

[edit]

The Illusions

[edit]

Award Recipients

[edit]

The following table details the first, second, and third place recipients from each year of the contest since its inception.

Year First place Second place Third place
2005[6] Title: Motion Illusion Building Blocks
Created by: Arthur Shapiro & Justin Charles 		Title: Two-Stroke Apparent Motion
Created by: George Mather 		Title: Elusive Arch
Created by: Dejan Todorović
2006[7] Title: The Freezing Rotation Illusion
Created by: Max Dürsteler 		Title: The Infinite Regression Illusion
Created by: Peter Tse 		Title:The Bar-Cross-Ellipse Illusion
Created by: Gideon Caplovitz & Peter Tse
2007[8] Title: The Leaning Tower Illusion
Created by: Frederick Kingdom, Ali Yoonessi, & Elena Gheorghiu 		Title: The Illusory Contoured Tilting Pyramid
Created by: Pietro Guardini & Luciano Gamberini 		Title: Where Has All the Motion Gone?
Created by: Arthur Shapiro & Emily Knight
2008[9] Title: Filling in the Afterimage After the Image
Created by: Rob van Lier & Mark Vergeer 		Title: Ghostly Gaze
Created by: Rob Jenkins 		Title: Rolling Eyes on a Hollow Mask
Created by: Thomas Papathomas
2009[10] Title: The Break of the Curveball
Created by: Arthur Shapiro, Zhong-Lin Lu, Emily Knight, & Robert Ennis 		Title: Color Dove Illusion
Created by: Yuval Barkan & Hedva Spitzer 		Title: The Illusion of Sex
Created by: Richard Russell
2010[11] Title: Impossible Motion: Magnet Slopes
Created by: Kokichi Sugihara 		Title: Counter-Intuitive Illusory Contours
Created by: Bart Anderson 		Title: Two Sinusoids: 6-1 Perceptions
Created by: Jan Kremlacek
2011[12] Title: Silencing Awareness of Change by Background Information
Created by: Jordan Suchow & George Alvarez 		Title: Grouping by Contrast
Created by: Erica Dixon, Arthur Shapiro, & Kai Hamburger 		Title: The Loch Ness Aftereffect
Created by: Mark Wexler
2012[13] Title: The Disappearing Hand Trick
Created by: Roger Newport, Helen Gilpin, & Catherine Preston 		Title: When Pretty Girls Turn Ugly: The Flashed Face Distortion Effect
Created by: Jason Tangen, Sean Murphy, & Matthew Thompson 		Title: Color Wagon Wheel
Created by: Arthur Shapiro, William Kistler, & Alex Rose-Henig
2013[14] Title: Rotation Generated by Translation
Created by: Jun Ono, Akiyasu Tomoeda, & Kokichi Sugihara 		Title: Tusi or not Tusi
Created by: Arthur Shapiro & Alex Rose-Henig 		Title: Through the Eyes of Giants
Created by: Arash Afraz & Ken Nakayama
2014[15] Title: The Dynamic Ebbinghaus
Created by: Christopher D. Blair, Gideon P. Caplovitz, and Ryan E.B. Mruczek 		Title: Flexible Colors
Created by: Mark Vergeer, Stuart Anstis, and Rob van Lier 		Title: A Turn in the Road
Created by: Kimberley D. Orsten & James R. Pomerantz
2015[16] Title: Splitting Colors
Created by: Mark Vergeer 		Title: Ambiguous Garage Roof
Created by: Kokichi Sugihara 		Title: The Day it Rained on Lowry
Created by: Michael Pickard
2016[17] Title: Motion Integration Unleashed: New Tricks for an Old Dog
Created by: Mathew T. Harrison and Gideon P. Caplovitz 		Title: Ambiguous Cylinder Illusion
Created by: Kokichi Sugihara 		Title: Silhouette Zoetrope
Created by: Christine Veras
2017[18] Title: Shape from motion only
Created by: Hedva Spitzer, Dana Tearosh, Niv Weisman 		Title: Skye Blue Café Wall Illusion
Created by: Victoria Skye 		Title: Dynamic Müller-Lyer Illusion
Created by: Gianni A. Sarcone
2018[19] Title: Triply Ambiguous Object
Created by: Kokichi Sugihara 		Title: Movement Illusion with a Twist
Created by: David Phillips, Priscilla Heard and Christopher Tyler 		Title: The Worm’s Eye View Illusion
Created by: Michael Pickard and Gurpreet Singh
2019[20] Title: Dual Axis Illusion
Created by: Frank Force 		Title: Change the Color
Created by: Haruaki Fukuda 		Title: The Rotating Circles Illusion
Created by: Ryan E.B. Mruczek and Gideon Paul Caplovitz
2020[21] Title: 3D Schröder Staircase
Created by: Kokichi Sugihara 		Title: The Real Thing??
Created by: Matt Pritchard 		Title: Impossible grid typography
Created by: Daniël Maarleveld
2021[22] Title: The Phantom Queen
Created by: Matt Pritchard 		Title: The Changing Room Illusion
Created by: Michael A. Cohen 		Title: The Double Ring Illusion
Created by: Dawei Bai & Brent Strickland
2023[23] Title: Platform 9 3/4s
Created by: Matt Pritchard 		Title: Tower of Cubes?
Created by: John Salmon 		Title: Cornelia
Created by: Wendy van Boxtel

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "About the Contest". 8 September 2009. Retrieved 30 March 2014.
  2. ^ "The Martinez-Conde Lab". Retrieved 30 March 2014.
  3. ^ "The Stephen Macknik Lab". Retrieved 30 March 2014.
  4. ^ "Vision Sciences Society Satellite Events". Archived from the original on 8 October 2013. Retrieved 30 March 2014.
  5. ^ "Neural Correlate Society". Retrieved 30 March 2014.
  6. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2005". 23 August 2005. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  7. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2006". 8 May 2006. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  8. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2007". 12 May 2007. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  9. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2008". 11 May 2008. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  10. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2009". 10 May 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  11. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2010". 10 May 2010. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  12. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2011". 9 May 2011. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  13. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2012". 14 May 2012. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  14. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2013". 13 May 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2014.
  15. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2014". 18 May 2014. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
  16. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2015". 9 June 2015. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  17. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2016". 30 June 2016. Retrieved 19 July 2016.
  18. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2017". 5 October 2017. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  19. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2018". 17 October 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
  20. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2019". Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  21. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2020". Retrieved 5 December 2020.
  22. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2021". 20 December 2021. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
  23. ^ "Top Ten Finalists from 2023". 27 May 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2023.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Best_Illusion_of_the_Year_Contest&oldid=1227786711"