Talk:McCollough effect

Title and visibility of image
Moved to title with corrected spelling. Old spelling is now a redirect. Put in more accurate definition. Listed major reference to Science article. But could use more fleshing out. Montalvo 05:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Can we hide the images by default? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.228.162.48 (talk) 20:59, 3 June 2014 (UTC)


 * It's been a few years, and they still don't seem to be hidden by default. I feel like that's a pretty important priority for something like this. Not that it matters if there's any specific policy about this, but I feel like causing someones perceptions of color to be altered without their knowledge is probably not a neutral stance to take. TheJonyMyster (talk) 18:38, 16 January 2020 (UTC)


 * Looks about 6 years to me. Tend to agree. I seem to remember there was a little discussion about some other images, a while back, but for slightly different reasons.Martinevans123 (talk) 19:09, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see the "lack of consent" as an issue on this particular page since 1) the page is about the effect, and 2) the section is titled "Producing the effect." I think that is plenty of "notice".  It's far enough down the page that unless you have a huge screen or you have scaled your web browser way down, you won't be surprised by it if you navigate to the page.  Now, I suppose someone could put a rick-roll-type "surprise" link directly to the section of the article, but that's not a reason to say "This is why we can't have nice things." davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  21:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * If it takes at least a few minutes to induce the effect, as the article says, it seems unlikely that one would trigger the effect for themselves accidentally even if the images are shown by default. Also, even when I tried it myself, spending a number of minutes on the images, I find that personally, even though the effect exists, it's so weak that it's hard for me to imagine it being “dangerous”, and it requires very specific visuals for it to even manifest itself. Is it actually stronger for other people? Travis Evans (talk) 21:30, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article says: "Each image should be gazed at by the subject for several seconds at a time, and the two images should be gazed at for a total of several minutes for the effect to become visible." Although it's unclear what constitutes "several", and there will probably be individual differences in susceptibility,but it;s hard to see how the effect can occur with out a very deliberate attempt on the part of the reader. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:17, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Producing the effect
According to this, Wikipedia articles should not be written like how-to's. Yet, this portion of the article is clearly written like one, even giving suggestions and example images to use in order to reproduce the effect yourself. It should probably be changed. --213.47.38.96 (talk) 18:46, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Image
"One image should have verticle lines with a different color background and another with horizantal lines with another background color." Currently both images have horizontal lines. 68.49.1.207 11:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, can't believe I didn't catch that. Fixed. --Android Mouse 16:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I tried it. Didn't see colors but the horizontal lines appeared darker than the vertical lines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.119.95.190 (talk) 10:48, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I deleted some vandalism on this site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.227.163.40 (talk) 23:16, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Is something wrong with the image? Because i saw it blue instead of red!? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A03F:3CE9:C400:DDDE:6B7:E145:30A8 (talk) 21:54, 21 October 2017 (UTC)

The article says that the effect works best when the induction image and the test image have the same spatial frequency. At the moment, the test image has...twice the frequency, perhaps? 75.186.43.7 (talk) 17:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, appears to be twice the frequency. I see that the editor who uploaded the test image was User:Urutseg, from an original by User:Lampak, but not sure of they are still around. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Length of effect
How long does the effect generally last, if performed for the requested three minutes? If fifteen minutes can affect you for three months, does this not imply three minutes might leave you susceptible for 1-2 weeks? 90.32.19.122 (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I second that we should hide the images (like a "spoiler" block thingy). From what I've been reading, this can be seriously dangerous, and I think that putting these images up is dangerous, as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.87.1.138 (talk) 19:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Exactly what danger do you perceive? What have you been reading? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * The danger lies not so much in health, but rather in one's experience of color. The effect of the images used in this article could negatively affect the career of artists, visual designers, editors, etc. I'm not entirely sure how the conversation moved from the length of the effect to the possible danger of the effect, though? ~ Mable ( chat ) 08:48, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, there should be two separate discussion threads here. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:17, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Theres no danger at all. Nobody has ever come to harm by it, and nobody has proposed a mechanism for harm. And theres no suggestion of harm in the literature. Its fine. Lets not perpetrate sensational myths that this is some sort of spooky mind basilisk or whatever. Duckmonster (talk) 23:50, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

I found that if you rotate the induction images 90° and use them as the induction images after you have looked at the inductors on the page, the effect goes away. I have no citations, but you can easily prove it by doing it yourself. Can I edit the page? Mrmola (talk) 17:59, 17 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm sure you could edit the article, Mrmola. But you can't add claims based purely on your own personal experiences (even if they were also reported by other editors who had subjectively replicated the effect you report). You'd need to report a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal such as Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance or Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, etc. Martinevans123 (talk)


 * This sounds really dumb but, how exactly do I do do that? Could you point me towards a page where I could read how to? Mrmola (talk) 21:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Hi Mrmola. The kind of citation that would be most acceptable would be something like that first reference, at the end of the opening section, at the end of the sentence "The effect was discovered by American psychologist Celeste McCollough in 1965." Just use that structure as a template. But that's the easy part. The difficult part (unless you're an expert in the field) is to find a paper which actually reports the effect that you report. I have no idea if such a paper has even been written yet. Searching with Google, or with a specialist database such as e.g., might be a good place to start looking. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:09, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * But, to my knowledge, I discovered it. Would I write "This was discovered by mrmola, a kitchen psycologist"? Also not to be rude, but why do I have to cite a source if anyone can prove it themselves that it works in literally 6 minutes? Mrmola (talk) 05:06, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * They (e.g. you in your own kitchen) can indeed "prove" it to themselves in literally 6 minutes. But then autosuggestion can also do a similar thing? What they (or you) can do is to prove it by means of official publishing in a reliable peer-reviewed academic journal, where it is open to proper scientific scrutiny, which might take take six months. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:49, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "What they (nor you)..."? Is the nor you a typo? Mrmola (talk) 20:39, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, now corrected. Thanks. Six is an rather ambitiously optimistic estimate too. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2017 (UTC)


 * How do I publish it in a peer review journal Mrmola (talk) 22:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)


 * You'd probably need to write your paper first? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)


 * You can not publish original research in Wikipedia. Its one of the foundation rules of the site. If you think you've discovered a new phenomena or aspect to this phenomena, write a scientific paper (Or at least notify your local university psychology department, so one of the postgrads can have a look at it, chances are if they publish you'll be listed as a co-author.) ONCE its a published phenomena, someone can update this page. But you cant just invent something and write about it here. Thats not how Wikipedia works. Duckmonster (talk) 23:53, 2 October 2022 (UTC)art
 * Aaaand removed it from the article. PLEASE dont go publishing original research to the articles. Duckmonster (talk) 23:58, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

General - Acronyms
"CR" is not defined. 2601:6:E80:A06:E567:4489:5893:DDDA (talk) 11:35, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Spelling
McCollough's paper has sparked [...] McCulloch indicated [...]

...Could the article decide on one spelling instead of switching between them in one sentence?

The article says this:
 * "However, Jones and Holding (1975) found that 15 minutes of induction can lead to an effect lasting 3.5 months."

But the abstract says this: "The repeated-test group showed a linear decrease of effect against the stated delays, reaching zero at 120 hr. In contrast, the time-elapse groups showed little decline up to 120 hr. Those groups retested at 120 hr showed declines due to prior testing. When 4 more groups totaling 40 college Ss were subsequently tested at intervals up to 2,040 hr, the effect remained at better than half strength."

2,040 hours is approx 2.8 months. So where did 3.5 months come from? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:46, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Side effect or mechanism (Visual Snow manipulation)
Years ago I had done an informal study of this effect, and I did make an observation that i haven't seen recorded anywhere, but I really think should be followed up on by someone researching this.

Using the plain horizontal, or vertical lines (any induction color) as test images, I shut one eye. It takes a little bit of practice, but if you continue to stare at the lines, but then shift your minds focus to the eye that is closed, an interesting thing happens.

When observing horizontal lines, i noticed tiny pixelations (of varying intensity) that flowed in two directions, seemingly at the same time. When you try to focus on the detail of it, your eyes lose fixation on the target image, making discerning detail somewhat difficult. I think I was able to make out 2 layers, when viewing vertical lines the pixels could be seen flowing left, and on another layer, right. When not focused, it would just be a blend of pixels flowing in both directions.

When observing horizontal lines, the pixelations traveled vertically. Whatever orientation of lines you were viewing, the opposite was visible. I did not study line density in this case, but that would be a good follow-up to do so.

To reiterate, when viewing vertical lines, 'pixels' would be seen travelling left and right, in 'rivers' or 'channels' of static.

When viewing horizontal lines, pixels could be seen traveling vertically, up and down.

I note that this would seem like it coincides with what we know about image recognition, where different neural nets are trained for different features. (ie. detection of horizontal line, vs vertical) Possibly a similar mechanism is at work here?

It really seemed to resemble the scanning a computer might do if it was looking for pixels on a screen.

Upon further investigation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_snow_syndrome

The 'pixelations' i remarked upon, is definitely visual snow, but it seemed to be oriented in directions opposite to the lines observed. While there seems to be some research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigengrau suggesting that it might be an eye condition. I don't think that it would explain the line orientations.

Realizing that you can manipulate the visual snow, could possibly be useful to those seeking a cure for this. Which seems to me, that it would be caused by a hyperactivity in the visual processing, making the visual noise much more noticeable to those affected. Warren008 (talk) 08:58, 11 November 2022 (UTC)