In this volume, originally published in 1978, the authors survey the historical and contemporary research literature pertaining to two-dimensional visual-geometric illusions. They bring together much of the known data, summarising and evaluating theories that have been offered to explain these phenomena. Coren and Girgus provide a new conceptual framework that suggest that visual illusions are not unitary phenomena. Within this framework, illusions do not represent a breakdown in normal perceptual processing. Rather, it is proposed that each illusion is produced by a number of mechanisms operating at different levels in the visual information processing system. The book contains an extensive collection of illusion figures. It will be essential reading for all of those concerned with vision and visual perception, since it integrates the study of illusions into the main body of psychological and perceptual theories at the time.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Cupcake Bakery Mysteries comes the start of a series about a library where the mysteries refuse to stay in the fiction section... Lindsey is getting into her groove as the director of the Briar Creek Public Library when a New York editor visits town, creating quite a buzz. Lindsey’s friend Beth wants to sell the editor her children’s book, but Beth’s boyfriend, a famous author, gets in the way. When they go to confront him, he’s found murdered—and Beth is the prime suspect. Lindsey has to act fast—before they throw the book at the wrong person.

Emily's strange and sullen subculture of one continues to win the rebellious hearts and minds of millions of fans the world around. Now 13 years old, our defiant heroine has a major motion picture in the works, a quarterly comic book, and has made her mark on strange and best-selling merchandise from candy to couture, guitars to lip gloss. Despite her decidedly antisocial tendencies, Emily is more popular than ever. Her books and gift titles have collectively sold over half a million copies, and she is published in 5 languages. In this, her 4th book, Emily the Strange Seeing Is Deceiving, Emily challenges her dark devotees to see things her way. The same engaging format features fantastic production quality with ghostly spot varnish tricks plus eye-popping die-cuts. A brand new gift line will publish simultaneously, including some amazing new materials, such as vinyl and stitching. Fans, new and old, won't believe their eyes when they get a closer look at Emily's optical delusions.

Life is just time spent between bouts of self-pity and his next drink for Dirk Crandell, a salty small-town newspaper writer. Then an intriguing letter crosses his desk from a young woman in LA. What follows for Crandell is a life-changing series of twists and turns as the promise made to the young woman in the letter leads him into a web of conspiracy, deception, and deception. As he delves further into this small towns sinister series of events, some going back twenty years, he begins to unravel a cover-up of deadly proportions. Joining forces with his seductive managing editor, Kristen Harden, he discovers not only that Looks Can Be Deceiving but hazardous to your health as well.

In this mix of mystery and high comedy, set amid the glories of the Rocky Mountain foothills, television photographer Phoebe Fairfax and her gorgeous but decidedly dotty on-air colleague Candi Sinclair are taping at a psychic fair. Shortly after they shoot an interview with him, arch-creep Jonathan Webster collapses and dies, murdered with a dose of agricultural pesticide administered in a most unusual way. The police immediately suspect his common law wife Tracy McMurtry, an old high-school pal of Candi's. The fact that Webster used Tracy as his personal punching bag when he wasn't busy losing all her money on one of his compulsive gambling sprees puts her at the top of their list. The impulsive Candi immediately sets out to clear her old friend's name, dragging the reluctant Phoebe in her wake. Phoebe finds the answer to the mystery of Webster's murder in the midst of a spring blizzard high in the foothills west of Calgary. Or does she? Could it be that all her efforts only serve to prove that seeing truly can be deceiving? A Globe and Mail best seller.

Lady Phoebe Fairchild is well aware that the ton would be appalled to learn of a young lady of quality involved in a trade. Therefore, she resorts to selling her beautiful handmade gowns under a fictitious name: Madame Dupree. So when circumstances force her to visit the estate of William Darby, the Viscount of Summerfield, to design ball gowns for his sisters, she assumes Madame's identity. Phoebe's discomfort in her new position as hired help is nothing compared to her visceral attraction to the viscount himself. Heathenishly handsome and shamelessly seductive, Will invites her to be his mistress -- and Phoebe is shockingly tempted to accept. But as their desire for each other grows and the risk of exposure becomes even greater, Phoebe is in dire danger of losing her reputation, her livelihood -- and her chance of becoming the bride of the man whose passion has claimed her forever.

Photography is a lie. Just think about it: photographers create two-dimensional images that sometimes even lack color and then expect everyone who views the image to believe that this is how the subject and scene appeared in front of the lens, in real life. What is truly amazing is that people fall for the visual trickery readily, almost as if they want to be deceived. It gets better: people still believe that one can photograph only what is really there. In this book, Irakly Shanidze reveals the smoke and mirrors that the best photographers use to surprise, entertain, and inspire viewers. He explains that the individual features of photographer’s perception and technical limitations of his equipment make him do things that may eventually make a picture look very different from how a viewer would see the same scene with a naked eye and can lead to a ruined picture. Conversely, photographers who understand these phenomena can use the aforementioned “constraints” to deliberately adjust the level of truthfulness in their pictures. In each beautifully illustrated chapter, Shanidze discloses the photographic tools that enterprising photographers can use to create visual deception (e.g., to create a sense of dimension, create day-for-night effects, establish mood, simulate candid photographs, and generally suspend disbelief—without the time-consuming post-processing!). In doing so, he describes the image objectives (in other words, defines the image concepts) and introduces the tools needed to achieve them—whether a lens of a certain focal length, a light of a specific wattage, or a given shutter speed. He also deconstructs some of his favorite images to show readers how he was able to create a chiseled deception of his own. Armed with this book, photographers will learn to truly take the reins in their photographic pursuits and deliver supercharged, iconic, storytelling images.

Everyone says that lying is wrong. But when we say that lying is bad and hurtful and that we would never intentionally tell a lie, are we really deceiving anyone? In this wise and insightful book, David Nyberg exposes the tacit truth underneath our collective pretense and reveals that an occasional lie can be helpful, healthy, creative, and, in some situations, even downright moral. Through familiar and often entertaining examples, Nyberg explores the purposes deception serves, from the social kindness of the white lie to the political ends of diplomacy to the avoidance of pain or unpleasantness. He looks at the lies we tell ourselves as well, and contrary to the scolding of psychologists demonstrates that self-deception is a necessary function of mental health, one of the mind's many weapons against stress, uncertainty, and chaos. Deception is in our nature, Nyberg tells us. In civilization, just as in the wilderness, survival does not favor the fully exposed or conspicuously transparent self. As our minds have evolved, as practical intelligence has become more refined, as we have learned the subtleties of substituting words and symbols for weapons and violence, deception has come to play a central and complex role in social life. The Varnished Truth takes us beyond philosophical speculation and clinical analysis to give a sense of what it really means to tell the truth. As Nyberg lays out the complexities involved in leading a morally decent life, he compels us to see the spectrum of alternatives to telling the truth and telling a clear-cut lie. A life without self-deception would be intolerable and a world of unconditional truth telling unlivable. His argument that deception and self-deception are valuable to both social stability and individual mental health boldly challenges popular theories on deception, including those held by Sissela Bok and Daniel Goleman. Yet while Nyberg argues that we deceive, among other reasons, so that we might not perish of the truth, he also cautions that we deceive carelessly, thoughtlessly, inhumanely, and selfishly at our own peril.

Emily shows how she sees the world and how deceptive sight can be, in this book of illusions and surprises.