Optical illusions do not affect schizophrenics

The illustration below shows the reverse side of the mask - a concave image ( video ). Because of the well-known “glitch” in the human brain, most healthy people see a convex image here, ignoring the obvious signs of light and shadow. About two years ago, scientists proved that the brain of schizophrenic cannot be deceived - for him the mask remains concave. This is an interesting case when the distortion of reality and self-deception is a sign of a healthy person.



This optical illusion also does not affect some people under the influence of alcohol and drugs.

The reason why a schizophrenic brain refuses to accept an optical illusion is not completely clear. Scientists suggest that it is associated with the wrong (or correct, but certainly "unhealthy") way of processing visual information and pattern recognition.
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Approximately 0.7% of the population suffers from schizophrenia . The disease is accompanied by hallucinations, behavioral and emotional problems, depression, anxiety, increased risk of suicide. To date, there is no reliable laboratory test for schizophrenia. In the USSR, this diagnosis was often used against dissidents.

Interestingly, only a small fraction of people can see reality without distortion, and this is a 100% sign of mental illness. Moreover, how then to classify "hallucinations", which are one of the clinical symptoms of schizophrenia?

Symptoms of schizophrenia were observed in the mathematician John Nash (the Nobel Prize winner in economics in 1994, whose life story formed the basis of the film “Mind Games”),

The results of a study by scientists from Hannover Medical University and University College London were published in the scientific journal NeuroImage [Danai Dima, Jonathan P. Roiser, Detlef E. Dietrich, Catharina Bonnemann, Heinrich Lanfermann, Hinderk M. Emrich, Wolfgang Dillo, NeuroImage, In Press, Available online 24 March 2009].