he Ebbinghaus illusion or Titchener circles is an optical illusion of relative size perception. Named for its discoverer, the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909), the illusion was popularized in the English-speaking world by Edward B. Titchener in a 1901 textbook of experimental psychology, hence its alternative name.[1] In the best-known version of the illusion, two circles of identical size are placed near to each other, and one is surrounded by large circles while the other is surrounded by small circles. As a result of the juxtaposition of circles, the central circle surrounded by large circles appears smaller than the central circle surrounded by small circles.
Recent work suggests that two other critical factors involved in the perception of the Ebbinghaus illusion are the distance of the surrounding circles from the central circle and the completeness of the annulus, which makes the illusion comparable in nature to the Delboeuf illusion. Regardless of relative size, if the surrounding circles are closer to the central circle, the central circle appears larger and if the surrounding circles are far away, the central circle appears smaller. While the distance variable appears to be an active factor in the perception of relative size, the size of the surrounding circles limits how close they can be to the central circle, resulting in many studies confounding the two variables.[1]
Further References
Franz, V. H., Bülthoff, H. H., & Fahle, M.. (2003). Grasp effects of the Ebbinghaus illusion: Obstacle avoidance is not the explanation. Experimental Brain Research
“The perception-versus-action hypothesis states that visual information is processed in two different streams, one for visual awareness (or perception) and one for motor performance. previous reports that the ebbinghaus illusion deceives perception but not grasping seemed to indicate that this dichotomy between perception and action was fundamental enough to be reflected in the overt behavior of non-neurological, healthy humans. contrary to this view we show that the ebbinghaus illusion affects grasping to the same extent as perception. we also show that the grasp effects cannot be accounted for by non-perceptual obstacle avoidance mechanisms as has recently been suggested. instead, even subtle variations of the ebbinghaus illusion affect grasping in the same way as they affect perception. our results suggest that the same signals are responsible for the perceptual effects and for the motor effects of the ebbinghaus illusion. this casts doubt on one line of evidence, which used to strongly favor the perception-versus-action hypothesis.”
Haffenden, A. M., Schiff, K. C., & Goodale, M. A.. (2001). The dissociation between perception and action in the Ebbinghaus illusion: Nonillusory effects of pictorial cues on grasp. Current Biology
“According to a recently proposed distinction [1] between vision for perception and vision for action, visually guided movements should be largely immune to the perceptually compelling changes in size produced by pictorial illusions. tests of this prediction that use the ebbinghaus illusion have revealed only small effects of the illusion on grasp scaling as compared to its effect on perception [2-4]. nevertheless, some have argued that the small effect on grasp implies that there is a single representation of size for both perception and action [5]. recent findings, however, suggest that the 2-d pictorial elements, such as those comprising illusory backgrounds, can sometimes be treated as obstacles and thereby influence the programming of grasp [6]. the arrangement of the 2-d elements commonly used in previous studies examining the ebbinghaus illusion could therefore give rise to an effect on grasp scaling that is independent of its effect on perceptual judgements, even though the two effects are in the same direction. we present evidence demonstrating that when the gap between the target and the illusion-making elements in the ebbinghaus illusion is equidistant across different perceptual conditions (figure 1a), the apparent effect of the illusion on grasp scaling is eliminated.”
Franz, V. H., & Gegenfurtner, K. R.. (2008). Grasping visual illusions: Consistent data and no dissociation. In Cognitive Neuropsychology
“The finding that the ebbinghaus/titchener illusion deceives perception but not grasping is usually seen as strong evidence for goodale and milner’s (1992) notion of two parallel visual systems, one being conscious and deceived by the illusion (vision-for-perception) and the other being unconscious and not deceived (vision-for-action). however, this finding is controversial and led to studies with seemingly contradictory results. we argue that these results are not as contradictory as it might seem. instead, studies consistently show similar effects of the illusion on grasping. the perceptual effects are strongly dependent on the specific perceptual measure employed. if, however, some methodological precautions are used, then these diverse perceptual results can be reconciled and point to a single internal size estimate that is used for perception and for grasping. this suggests that the ebbinghaus illusion deceives a common representation of object size that is used by perception and action.”
Franz, V. H., Gegenfurtner, K. R., Bülthoff, H. H., & Fahle, M.. (2000). Grasping visual illusions: No evidence for a dissociation between perception and action. Psychological Science
“Neuropsychological studies prompted the theory that the primate visual system might be organized into two parallel pathways, one for conscious perception and one for guiding action. supporting evidence in healthy subjects seemed to come from a dissociation in visual illusions: in previous studies, the ebbinghaus (or titchener) illusion deceived perceptual judgments of size, but only marginally influenced the size estimates used in grasping. contrary to those results, the findings from the present study show that there is no difference in the sizes of the perceptual and grasp illusions if the perceptual and grasping tasks are appropriately matched. we show that the differences found previously can be accounted for by a hitherto unknown, nonadditive effect in the illusion. we conclude that the illusion does not provide evidence for the existence of two distinct pathways for perception and action in the visual system.”
Song, C., Schwarzkopf, D. S., & Rees, G.. (2011). Interocular induction of illusory size perception. BMC Neuroscience
“BACKGROUND:the perceived size of objects not only depends on their physical size but also on the surroundings in which they appear. for example, an object surrounded by small items looks larger than a physically identical object surrounded by big items (ebbinghaus illusion), and a physically identical but distant object looks larger than an object that appears closer in space (ponzo illusion). activity in human primary visual cortex (v1) reflects the perceived rather than the physical size of objects, indicating an involvement of v1 in illusory size perception. here we investigate the role of eye-specific signals in two common size illusions in order to provide further information about the mechanisms underlying illusory size perception.nnresults:we devised stimuli so that an object and its spatial context associated with illusory size perception could be presented together to one eye or separately to two eyes. we found that the ponzo illusion had an equivalent magnitude whether the objects and contexts were presented to the same or different eyes, indicating that it may be largely mediated by binocular neurons. in contrast, the ebbinghaus illusion became much weaker when objects and their contexts were presented to different eyes, indicating important contributions to the illusion from monocular neurons early in the visual pathway.nnconclusions:our findings show that two well-known size illusions – the ponzo illusion and the ebbinghaus illusion – are mediated by different neuronal populations, and suggest that the underlying neural mechanisms associated with illusory size perception differ and can be dependent on monocular channels in the early visual pathway.”
Doherty, M. J., Campbell, N. M., Tsuji, H., & Phillips, W. A.. (2010). The Ebbinghaus illusion deceives adults but not young children. Developmental Science
“The sensitivity of size perception to context has been used to distinguish between ‘vision for action’ and ‘vision for perception’, and to study cultural, psychopathological, and developmental differences in perception. the status of that evidence is much debated, however. here we use a rigorous double dissociation paradigm based on the ebbinghaus illusion, and find that for children below 7 years of age size discrimination is much less affected by surround size. young children are less accurate than adults when context is helpful, but more accurate when context is misleading. even by the age of 10 years context-sensitivity is still not at adult levels. therefore, size contrast as shown by the ebbinghaus illusion is not a built-in property of the ventral pathway subserving vision for perception but a late development of it, and low sensitivity to the ebbinghaus illusion in autism is not primary to the pathology. our findings also show that, although adults in western cultures have low context-sensitivity relative to east asians, they have high context-sensitivity relative to children. overall, these findings reveal a gradual developmental trend toward ever broader contextual syntheses. such developments are advantageous, but the price paid for them is that, when context is misleading, adults literally see the world less accurately than they did as children.”
Rose, D., & Bressan, P.. (2002). Going round in circles: Shape effects in the Ebbinghaus illusion. Spatial Vision
“The ebbinghaus illusion has traditionally been considered as either a sensory or a cognitive illusion, or some combination of these two. cognitive contrast explanations take support from the way the illusion varies with the degree of shape similarity between the test and inducing elements; we show, however, that contour interaction explanations may account for this result too. we therefore tested these alternative theories by measuring the illusion with different test shapes as well as different inducer shapes, in all combinations. we found that for angular or hexagonal test shapes there is no similarity effect, and for some shape combinations there is no significant illusion, in contradiction to both of the traditional hypotheses. instead, we suggest that an integrated model of visual processing is needed to account for the illusion.”
de Fockert, J., Davidoff, J., Fagot, J., Parron, C., & Goldstein, J.. (2007). More Accurate Size Contrast Judgments in the Ebbinghaus Illusion by a Remote Culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
“The ebbinghaus (titchener) illusion was examined in a remote culture (himba) with no words for geometric shapes. the illusion was experienced less strongly by himba compared with english participants, leading to more accurate size contrast judgments in the himba. the study included two conditions of inducing stimuli. the illusion was weaker when the inducing stimuli were dissimilar (diamonds) to the target (circle) compared with when they were similar (circles). however, the illusion was weakened to the same extent in both cultures. it is argued that the more accurate size judgments of the himba derive from their tendency to prioritize the analysis of local details in visual processing of multiple objects, and not from their impoverished naming.”
“In the ebbinghaus size illusion, a central circle surrounded by small circles (inducers) appears bigger than an identical one surrounded by large inducers. previous studies have failed to demonstrate sensitivity to this illusion in pigeons and baboons, leading to the conclusion that avian species (possibly also nonhuman primates) might lack the neural substrate necessary to perceive the ebbinghaus illusion in a human-like fashion. such a substrate may have been only recently evolved in the primate lineage. here, we show that this illusion is perceived by 4-day-old domestic chicks. during rearing, chicks learnt, according to an observational-learning paradigm, to find food in proximity either of a big or of a small circle. subjects were then tested with ebbinghaus stimuli: two identical circles, one surrounded by larger and the other by smaller inducers. the percentage of approaches to the perceptually bigger target in animals reinforced on the bigger circle (and vice versa for the other group) was computed. over four experiments, we demonstrated that chicks are reliably affected by the illusory display. subjects reinforced on the small target choose the configuration with big inducers, in which the central target appears perceptually smaller; the opposite is true for subjects reinforced on the big target. this result has important implications for the evolutionary history of the neural substrate involved in the perception of the ebbinghaus illusion.”
Parron, C., & Fagot, J.. (2007). Comparison of Grouping Abilities in Humans (Homo sapiens) and Baboons (Papio papio) With the Ebbinghaus Illusion. Journal of Comparative Psychology
“This research comparatively assessed grouping mechanisms of humans (n = 8) and baboons (n = 8) in an illusory task that employs configurations of target and surrounding circles arranged to induce the ebbinghaus (titchener) illusion. analyses of response behaviors and points of subjective equality demonstrated that only humans misjudged the central target size under the influence of the ebbinghaus illusion, whereas baboons expressed a more veridical perception of target sizes. it is argued that humans adopted a global mode of stimulus processing of the illusory figure in our task that has favored the illusion. by contrast, a strong local mode of stimulus processing with attention restricted to the target must have prevented illusory effects in baboons. these findings suggest that monkeys and humans have evolved modes of object recognition that do not similarly rely on the same gestalt principles.”
Franz, V. H.. (2003). Planning versus online control: Dynamic illusion effects in grasping?. Spatial Vision
“The planning/control model of action assumes that grasping is sensitive to the context of an object only in early stages of the movement (planning), but not in later stages (control). in consequence, the effects of context-induced illusions (such as the ebbinghaus/titchener illusion) should decrease during a grasping movement. here, we tested this claim by reanalysing a large data set (n = 26) on grasping in the ebbinghaus illusion. contrary to the predictions of the planning/control model, we found that the effects of the illusion did not decrease over time. instead, the illusion effects stayed remarkably constant.”
Vishton, P. M., Stephens, N. J., Nelson, L. A., Morra, S. E., Brunick, K. L., & Stevens, J. A.. (2007). Planning to reach for an object changes how the reacher perceives it. Psychological Science
“Three experiments assessed the influence of the ebbinghaus illusion on size judgments that preceded verbal, grasp, or touch responses. prior studies have found reduced effects of the illusion for the grip-scaling component of grasping, and these findings are commonly interpreted as evidence that different visual systems are employed for perceptual judgment and visually guided action. in the current experiments, the magnitude of the illusion was reduced by comparable amounts for grasping and for judgments that preceded grasping (experiment 1). a similar effect was obtained prior to reaching to touch the targets (experiment 2). the effect on verbal responses was apparent even when participants were simply instructed that a target touch task would follow the verbal task. after participants had completed a grasping task, the reduction in the magnitude of the illusion remained for a subsequent verbal-response judgment task (experiment 3). overall, the studies demonstrate strong connections between action planning and perception.”
Plodowski, A., & Jackson, S. R.. (2001). Vision: Getting to grips with the Ebbinghaus illusion. Current Biology
“It is well known that visual illusions can have a dramatic effect upon our visual perception of such properties as an object’s size. it remains the subject of much debate, however, whether visual illusions have a similar influence on visually guided actions. recent studies have thrown new light on this debate.”
Kopiske, K. K., Bruno, N., Hesse, C., Schenk, T., & Franz, V. H.. (2016). The functional subdivision of the visual brain: Is there a real illusion effect on action? A multi-lab replication study. Cortex
“It has often been suggested that visual illusions affect perception but not actions such as grasping, as predicted by the ‘two-visual-systems’ hypothesis of milner and goodale (1995, the visual brain in action, oxford university press). however, at least for the ebbinghaus illusion, relevant studies seem to reveal a consistent illusion effect on grasping (franz & gegenfurtner, 2008. grasping visual illusions: consistent data and no dissociation. cognitive neuropsychology). two interpretations are possible: either grasping is not immune to illusions (arguing against dissociable processing mechanisms for vision-for-perception and vision-for-action), or some other factors modulate grasping in ways that mimic a vision-for perception effect in actions. it has been suggested that one such factor may be obstacle avoidance (haffenden schiff & goodale, 2001. the dissociation between perception and action in the ebbinghaus illusion: nonillusory effects of pictorial cues on grasp. current biology, 11, 177-181). in four different labs (total n = 144), we conducted an exact replication of previous studies suggesting obstacle avoidance mechanisms, implementing conditions that tested grasping as well as multiple perceptual tasks. this replication was supplemented by additional conditions to obtain more conclusive results. our results confirm that grasping is affected by the ebbinghaus illusion and demonstrate that this effect cannot be explained by obstacle avoidance.”
Nakamura, N., Watanabe, S., & Fujita, K.. (2008). Pigeons perceive the Ebbinghaus-Titchener circles as an assimilation illusion.. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Animal Behavior Processes
“A target circle surrounded by larger ‘inducer’ circles looks smaller, and one surrounded by smaller circles looks larger than they really are. this is the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion, which remains one of the strongest and most robust of contrast illusions. although there have been many studies on this illusion in humans, virtually none have addressed how nonhuman animals perceive the same figures. here the authors show that the ebbinghaus-titchener figures also induce a strong illusion in pigeons but, surprisingly, in the other direction; that is, all five successfully trained pigeons judged the target circle surrounded by larger circles to be larger than it really is and vice versa. further analyses proved that neither the gaps between target and inducer circles nor the cumulative weighted surface of these figural elements could account for the birds’ responses. pigeons are known to show similarities to humans on various cognitive and perceptual tasks including concept formation, short-term memory, and some visual illusions. our results, taken together with pigeons’ previously demonstrated failure at visual completion, provide strong evidence that pigeons may actually experience a visual world too different for us to imagine.”
Danckert, J. A., Sharif, N., Haffenden, A. M., Schiff, K. C., & Goodale, M. A.. (2002). A temporal analysis of grasping in the Ebbinghaus illusion: Planning versus online control. Experimental Brain Research
“Recent work has shown that pictorial illusions have a greater effect on perceptual judgements than they do on the visual control of actions, such as object-directed grasping. this dissociation between vision for perception and vision for action is thought to reflect the operation of two separate streams of visual processing in the brain. glover and dixon claim, however, that perceptual illusions can influence the control of grasping but that these effects are evident only at early stages of the movement. by the time the action nears its completion any effect of illusions disappears. glover and dixon suggest that these results are consistent with what they call a ‘planning and control’ model of action, in which actions are planned using a context-dependent visual representation but are monitored and corrected online using a context-independent representation. we reanalysed data from an earlier experiment on grasping in the ebbinghaus illusion in which we showed that maximum grip aperture was unaffected by this size-contrast illusion. when we looked at these data more closely, we found no evidence for an effect of the illusion even at the earliest stages of the movement. these findings support the suggestion that the initial planning of a simple object-directed grasping movement in this illusory context is indeed refractory to the effects of the illusion. this is not to suggest that more deliberate and/or complex movements could not be influenced by contextual information.”
Pickett, C. L.. (2001). The effects of entitativity beliefs on implicit comparisons between group members. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
“The present research indicates that perceivers’ beliefs about a group’s level of entitativity can affect the extent to which group members are implicitly compared with one another. to find evidence for these implicit comparisons, a variation of the ebbinghaus illusion was used. exp 1 (n = 258) demonstrated that an identical set of faces produced a greater illusion (indicating greater implicit comparison) when the faces were said to represent fraternity/sorority members than when the faces were said to represent men or women born in the month of may. exp 2 (n = 118) replicated these results and also demonstrated that participants’ prior beliefs about how entitative these groups are predicted the magnitude of the ebbinghaus illusion produced. these findings indicate that entitativity beliefs can have implicit effects on judgment such that members of highly entitative groups are subject to greater intragroup comparison than are members of nonentitative groups. (psycinfo database record (c) 2002 apa, all rights reserved)”
Haffenden, A. M., & Goodale, M. A.. (1998). The effect of pictorial illusion on prehension and perception. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
“The present study examined the effect of a size-contrast illusion (ebbinghaus or titchener circles illusion) on visual perception and the visual control of grasping movements. seventeen right-handed participants picked up and, on other trials, estimated the size of ‘poker-chip’ disks, which functioned as the target circles in a three-dimensional version of the illusion. in the estimation condition, subjects indicated how big they thought the target was by separating their thumb and forefinger to match the target’s size. after initial viewing, no visual feedback from the hand or the target was available. scaling of grip aperture was found to be strongly correlated with the physical size of the disks, while manual estimations of disk size were biased in the direction of the illusion. evidently, grip aperture is calibrated to the true size of an object, even when perception of object size is distorted by a pictorial illusion, a result that is consistent with recent suggestions that visually guided prehension and visual perception are mediated by separate visual pathways.”
Sovrano, V. A., Albertazzi, L., & Rosa Salva, O.. (2014). The Ebbinghaus illusion in a fish (Xenotoca eiseni). Animal Cognition
“The tendency of fish to perceive the ebbinghaus illusion was investigated. redtail splitfins (xenotoca eiseni, family goodeidae) were trained to discriminate between two disks of different sizes. then, fish were presented with two disks of the same size surrounded by disks of large or small size (inducers) arranged to produce the impression (to a human observer) of two disks of different sizes (in the ebbinghaus illusion, a central disk surrounded by small inducers appears bigger than an identical one surrounded by large inducers). fish chose the stimulus that, on the basis of a perception of the ebbinghaus illusion, appeared deceptively larger or smaller, consistent with the condition of training. these results demonstrate that redtail splitfins tend to perceive this particular illusion. the results are discussed with reference to other related illusions that have been recently observed to be experienced by fish (such as the navon effect), and with regard to their possible evolutionary implications.”
Glover, S., & Dixon, P.. (2002). Dynamic effects of the Ebbinghaus illusion in grasping: Support for a planning/control model of action. Perception and Psychophysics
“A distinction between planning and control can be used to explain the effects of context-induced illusions on actions. the present study tested the effects of the ebbinghaus illusion on the planning and control of the grip aperture in grasping a disk. in two experiments, the illusion had an effect on grip aperture that decreased as the hand approached the target, whether or not visual feedback was available. these results are taken as evidence in favor of a planning/control model, in which planning is susceptible to context-induced illusions, whereas control is not. it is argued that many dissociations between perception and action may better be explained as dissociations between perception and on-line control.”
Káldy, Z., & Kovács, I.. (2003). Visual context integration is not fully developed in 4-year-old children. Perception
“Long-range horizontal interactions supporting contour integration were found to be weaker in children than in adults (kovács et al, 1999 proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the usa 96 12204-12209). in the present study, integration on a larger scale, between a target and its context was investigated. contextual modulation of the percept of a local target can be directly measured in the case of geometric illusions. we compared the magnitude of a size contrast illusion (ebbinghaus illusion or titchener circles) in children and adults. 4-year-old children and adults performed 2afc size comparisons between two target disks in the classical ebbinghaus illusion display and in two other modified versions. we found that the magnitude of the illusion effect was significantly smaller in children than in adults. our interpretation is that context integration is not fully developed in 4-year-old children. closer-to-veridical-size estimations by children demonstrate that the perception of the local target is less affected by stimulus context in their case. we suggest that immature cortical connectivity is behind the reduced contextual sensitivity in children.”
Byosiere, S. E., Feng, L. C., Woodhead, J. K., Rutter, N. J., Chouinard, P. A., Howell, T. J., & Bennett, P. C.. (2017). Visual perception in domestic dogs: susceptibility to the Ebbinghaus–Titchener and Delboeuf illusions. Animal Cognition
“Susceptibility to geometrical visual illusions has been tested in a number of non-human animal species, providing important information about how these species perceive their environment. considering their active role in human lives, visual illusion susceptibility was tested in domestic dogs (canis familiaris). using a two-choice simultaneous discrimination paradigm, eight dogs were trained to indicate which of two presented circles appeared largest. these circles were then embedded in three different illusory displays; a classical display of the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion; an illusory contour version of the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion; and the classical display of the delboeuf illusion. significant results were observed in both the classical and illusory contour versions of the ebbinghaus-titchener illusion, but not the delboeuf illusion. however, this susceptibility was reversed from what is typically seen in humans and most mammals. dogs consistently indicated that the target circle typically appearing larger in humans appeared smaller to them, and that the target circle typically appearing smaller in humans, appeared larger to them. we speculate that these results are best explained by assimilation theory rather than other visual cognitive theories explaining susceptibility to this illusion in humans. in this context, we argue that our findings appear to reflect higher-order conceptual processing in dogs that cannot be explained by accounts restricted to low-level mechanisms of early visual processing.”
Duemmler, T., Franz, V. H., Jovanovic, B., & Schwarzer, G.. (2008). Effects of the Ebbinghaus illusion on children’s perception and grasping. Experimental Brain Research
“We investigated the development of the ebbinghaus illusion in children’s perception and grasping. a previous study (hanisch et al. 2001) had reported negative illusion effects on 5- to 12-year-olds’ grasping as compared to their perception. we attempted to replicate this finding and to test different hypotheses based on a direct influence of the context elements on the trajectories of the fingers which could explain this reversal of the illusion effects. for 5- to 7- and 9- to 11-year-olds we observed the classical illusion effects in perception. illusion effects were perfectly similar for perception and grasping in 9- to 11-year-olds, while there was a non-significant trend toward smaller illusion effects in grasping for the 5- to 7-year-olds. this could be due to a slightly different effect of the illusion on younger children’s grasping. however, it seems clear that there are no qualitative changes, as a reversal of the illusion effects in grasping of younger children. finally, we show that our grasping data conform well to the motor literature for children’s grasping, thereby strengthening our conclusions.”
Massaro, D. W., & Anderson, N. H.. (1971). Judgmental model of the Ebbinghaus illusion. Journal of Experimental Psychology
“Two experiments studied the ebbinghaus illusion as a function of four stimulus variables: the size of the context circles, the number of context circles, the dis- tance between the context circles and the center circle, and the size of the center circle. the results provided a quantitative test of a judgmental model that con- siders the ebbinghaus illusion to be comparative in nature. the context circles, then, serve as standards or yardsticks, and the center circle is judged partly relative to them. the model provided a reasonably good description of the mag- nitude of the illusion as a function of the several stimulus variables. the”
Roberts, B., Harris, M. G., & Yates, T. A.. (2005). The roles of inducer size and distance in the Ebbinghaus illusion (Titchener circles). Perception
“Although the ebbinghaus illusion is commonly used as an example of a simple size-contrast effect, previous studies have emphasised its complexity by identifying many factors that potentially influence the magnitude of the illusion. here, in a series of three experiments, we attempt to simplify this complexity. in each trial, subjects saw a display comprising, on one side, a target stimulus surrounded by inducers and, on the other, an isolated probe stimulus. their task was to indicate whether the probe appeared larger or smaller than the target. probe size was adjusted with a one-up, one-down staircase procedure to find the point of subjective equality between probe and target. from these experiments, we argue that the apparent effects of inducer size are often confounded by the relative completeness of the inducing surround and that factors such as the similarity of the inducers and target are secondary. we suggest a simple model that can explain most of the data in terms of just two primary and independent factors: the relative size of the inducers and target, and the distance between the inducers and the target. the balance between these two factors determines whether the size of the target is underestimated or overestimated.”
The natural ability to understand – to shine light on things – a natural light within.
“Lumen naturale” is a Latin term that translates to “natural light.” In the context of the Enlightenment, philosophers often used this concept to represent reason and knowledge that comes from nature and human intellect rather than relying solely on religious or traditional authorities.
Enlightenment thinkers believed in the power of reason and rationality to discover truths about the world. They saw the human mind as capable of understanding and improving society through the application of logic and scientific inquiry. The term “lumen naturale” reflects the idea that there is an inherent, natural capacity for humans to gain knowledge and insight through reason, independent of divine revelation.
This concept played a significant role in shaping the intellectual landscape of the Enlightenment, emphasizing the importance of human agency and critical thinking in the pursuit of knowledge and progress.
Further References
Jacquette, D.. (1996). Descartes’ Lumen Naturale and the Cartesian Circle. Philosophy and Theology, 9(3), 273–320.
“The author argues that descartes is not trapped inside the cartesian circle. the essay rehearses descartes’ argument against the ‘evil demon’ hypothesis. the so-called cartesian circle is described and some of the most prominent discussions of the problem are evaluated. such arguments tend either to leave descartes in the circle, or themselves depend upon distinctions that in the end lead to descartes claiming something less than metaphysical certainty for his system. the author argues that descartes’ real archimedian point is the light of nature, and that his project is to extend the certainty of the light of nature to those ideas which are clear and distinct. using this interpretation of descartes, the author returns to the accounts of the critics to account for their mischaracterization of descartes’ reasoning as circular.”
Apel, M.. (1950). Lagarde, Paul Anton de– lumen naturale. In Philosophisches Wörterbuch (pp. 151–157). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter
Opahle, O.. (1952). Die Lehre vom „lumen naturale“ in ihrer Bedeutung für die Pädagogik. Vierteljahrsschrift Für Wissenschaftliche Pädagogik, 28(2), 115–124.
Structural violence is a term commonly ascribed to Johan Galtung, which he introduced in the article “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research” (1969). It refers to a form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs. Institutionalized adultism, ageism, classism, elitism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, speciesism, racism, and sexism are some examples of structural violence as proposed by Galtung.[2][3] According to Galtung, rather than conveying a physical image, structural violence is an “avoidable impairment of fundamental human needs”.[4] As it is avoidable, structural violence is a high cause of premature death and unnecessary disability. Because structural violence affects people differently in various social structures, it is very closely linked to social injustice.[5] Structural violence and direct violence are said to be highly interdependent, including family violence, gender violence, hate crimes, racial violence, police violence, state violence, terrorism, and war.
Farmer, P.. (2004). An Anthropology of Structural Violence. Current Anthropology
“Any thorough understanding of the modern epidemics of aids and tuberculosis in haiti or elsewhere in the postcolonial world requires a thorough knowledge of history and political economy. this essay, based on over a decade of research in rural haiti, draws on the work of sidney”
Farmer, P. E., Nizeye, B., Stulac, S., & Keshavjee, S.. (2006). Structural violence and clinical medicine. PLoS Medicine
“Structural violence refers to the social structures that put people in harm’s way. farmer and colleagues describe the impact of social violence upon people living with hiv in the us and rwanda.”
Galtung, J.. (1969). Violence, Peace, and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research
“Explores the concept of violence and gives details to the distinction between ‘structural’ and ‘physical’ violence. discusses the relationship between the two and how one may be used to prevent the other. describes the concept of peace in terms of these definitions and suggests the implications for research and peace studies.”
Farmer, P.. (2015). On Suffering and Structural Violence : A View from Below. Daedalus
“Everyone knows that suffering exists. the question is how to define it. given that each person’s pain has a degree of reality for him or her that the pain of others can surely never approach, is widespread agreement on the subject possible? almost all of us would agree that premature and painful illness, torture, and rape constitute extreme suffering. most would also agree that insidious assaults on dignity, such as institutionalized racism and sexism, also cause great and unjust injury. given our consensus on some of the more conspicuous forms of suffering, a number of corollary questions come to the fore. can we identify those most at risk of great suffering? among those whose suffering is not mortal, is it possible to identify those most likely to sustain permanent and disabling damage? are certain”
Kelly, B. D.. (2005). Structural violence and schizophrenia. Social Science and Medicine
“AbstractIn red tape, i do not use the term ?arbitrary? in opposition to ?systematic?, as is alleged by harriss and jeffrey. arbitrariness accompanies systematic forms of discrimination, and is the result of both, the indifference to outcomes and to the chaotic style of functioning of indian bureaucracies. interpreting structural violence, or explaining injustice, requires understanding what the state means to different people. the chief argument that poverty is a form of violence, and represents the killing of the poor, underlines the injustice that results from treating poverty as a biopolitical fact. i employ a notion of politics that is not restricted to parties and mobilization, but which saturates all relations of inequality. despite voicing dissatisfaction with the analysis presented in red tape, harriss and jeffrey fail to forward an adequate and coherent alternative.”
Ho, K.. (2007). Structural Violence as a Human Rights Violation. Essex Human Rights Review
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“(From the chapter) in this chapter, the author is concerned about later generations of human rights and their impact on the way peace psychologists think and practice. whereas first-generation rights refer to civil and political rights, second-generation rights focus on social, economic, and cultural rights. third-generation rights refer to ‘solidarity rights’ such as the right to development, self-determination, peace, and a clean environment. fourth-generation rights refer to the rights of indigenous peoples. after discussing the historical formulation of these rights, the author then shows how several recent psychological theories, including liberation psychology, cultural psychology, and social constructivism elucidate this extended thinking about human rights. she argues that examining these extended human rights helps us illuminate the chronic and hidden structural violence produced by armed conflict. she then describes how the cases of argentina and guatemala demonstrate a ‘shift toward the social and structural’ within selected areas of psychological and human rights discourse. she then describes community peace-building that focuses on the structural violence produced by violations of these extended human rights. (psycinfo database record (c) 2012 apa, all rights reserved).”
Sokoloff, N. J., & Dupont, I.. (2005). Domestic violence at the intersections of race, class, and gender: Challenges and contributions to understanding violence against marginalized women in diverse communities. Violence Against Women
“This article provides a comprehensive review of the emerging domestic violence literature using a race, class, gender, sexual orientation intersectional analysis and structural framework fostered by women of color and their allies to understand the experiences and contexts of domestic violence for marginalized women in u.s. society. the first half of the article lays out a series of challenges that an intersectional analysis grounded in a structural framework provides for understanding the role of culture in domestic violence. the second half of the article points to major contributions of such an approach to feminist methods and practices in working with battered women on the margins of society.”
Kumar, S.. (2015). Red tape: bureaucracy, structural violence, and poverty in India. The Journal of Peasant Studies
“Objective the aim of this study was to assess the financial costs to hospitals for the implementation of hospital-wide patient safety and infection control programs. methods we conducted questionnaire surveys and structured interviews in seven acute-care teaching hospitals with an established reputation for their efforts towards improving patient safety. we defined the scope of patient safety activities by use of an incremental activity measure between 1999 and 2004. hospital-wide incremental manpower, material, and financial resources to implement patient safety programs were measured. results the total incremental activities were 19,414–78,540 person-hours per year. the estimated incremental costs of activities for patient safety and infection control were calculated as us$ 1.100–2.335 million per year, equivalent to the employment of 17–40 full-time healthcare staff. the ratio of estimated costs to total medical revenue ranged from 0.55% to 2.57%. smaller hospitals tend to shoulder a higher burden compared to larger hospitals. conclusions our study provides a framework for measuring hospital-wide activities for patient safety. study findings suggest that the total amount of resources is so great that cost-effective and evidence-based health policy is needed to assure the sustainability of hospital safety programs.”
Ferguson, C. J., Rueda, S. M., Cruz, A. M., Ferguson, D. E., Fritz, S., & Smith, S. M.. (2008). Violent video games and aggression: Causal relationship or byproduct of family violence and intrinsic violence motivation?. Criminal Justice and Behavior
“Two studies examined the relationship between exposure to violent video games and aggression or violence in the laboratory and in real life. study 1 participants were either randomized or allowed to choose to play a violent or nonviolent game. although males were more aggressive than females, neither randomized exposure to violent-video-game conditions nor previous real-life exposure to violent video games caused any differences in aggression. study 2 examined correlations between trait aggression, violent criminal acts, and exposure to both violent games and family violence. results indicated that trait aggression, family violence, and male gender were predictive of violent crime, but exposure to violent games was not. structural equation modeling suggested that family violence and innate aggression as predictors of violent crime were a better fit to the data than was exposure to video game violence. these results question the common belief that violent-video-game exposure causes violent acts.”
Vine, D.. (2015). The United States Probably Has More Foreign Military Bases Than Any Other People, Nation, or Empire in History. The Nation
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“Ith the us military having withdrawn many of its forces from iraq and afghanistan, most americans would be forgiven for being unaware that hundreds of us bases and hundreds of thousands of us troops still encircle the globe. although few know it, the united states garrisons the planet unlike any country in history, and the evidence is on view from honduras to oman, japan to germany, singapore to djibouti. this article originally appeared at tomdispatch.com. to stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from tomdispatch.com. like most americans, for most of my life, i rarely thought about military bases. scholar and former cia consultant chalmers johnson described me well when he wrote in 2004, ‘as distinct from other peoples, most americans do not recognize—or do not want to recognize—that the united states dominates the world through its military power. due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet.’ to the extent that americans think about these bases at all, we generally assume they’re essential to national security and global peace. our leaders have claimed as much since most of them were established during world war ii and the early days of the cold war. as a result, we consider the situation normal and accept that us military installations exist in staggering numbers in other countries, on other peoples’ land. on the other hand, the idea that there would be foreign bases on us soil is unthinkable. while there are no freestanding foreign bases permanently located in the united states, there are now around 800 us bases in foreign countries. seventy years after world war ii and 62 years after the korean war, there are still 174 us ‘base sites’ in germany, 113 in japan, and 83 in south korea, according to the pentagon. hundreds more dot the planet in around 80 countries, including aruba and australia, bahrain and bulgaria, colombia, kenya, and qatar, among many other places. although few americans realize it, the united states likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history. oddly enough, however, the mainstream media rarely report or comment on the issue. for years, during debates over the closure of the prison at the base in guantánamo bay, cuba, nary a pundit or politician wondered why the united states has a base on cuban territory in the first place or questioned whether we should have one there at al…”
Scahill, J.. (2015). Germany is the Tell-Tale Heart of America’s Drone War. The Intercept
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“TOP-secret u.s. intelligence document obtained by the intercept confirms that the sprawling u.s. military base in ramstein, germany serves as the high-tech heart of america’s drone program. ramstein is the site of a satellite relay station that enables drone operators in the american southwest to communicate with their remote aircraft in yemen, somalia, afghanistan and other targeted countries. the top-secret slide deck, dated july 2012, provides the most detailed blueprint seen to date of the technical architecture used to conduct strikes with predator and reaper drones.”
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Russian: Протоколы сионских мудрецов) or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion is an antisemitic fabricated text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax, which was shown to be plagiarized from several earlier sources, some not antisemitic in nature,[1] was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. According to the claims made by some of its publishers, the Protocols are the minutes of a late 19th-century meeting where Jewish leaders discussed their goal of global Jewish hegemony by subverting the morals of Gentiles, and by controlling the press and the world’s economies.
Henry Ford funded printing of 500,000 copies that were distributed throughout the United States in the 1920s. The Nazis sometimes used the Protocols as propaganda against Jews; it was assigned by some German teachers, as if factual, to be read by German schoolchildren after the Nazis came to power in 1933,[2] despite having been exposed as fraudulent by The Times of London in 1921. It is still widely available today in numerous languages, in print and on the Internet, and continues to be presented by some proponents as a genuine document.
The Protocols also became a part of the Nazi propaganda effort to justify persecution of the Jews. In The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry 1933–1945, Nora Levin states that “Hitler used the Protocols as a manual in his war to exterminate the Jews”:
Despite conclusive proof that the Protocols were a gross forgery, they had sensational popularity and large sales in the 1920s and 1930s. They were translated into every language of Europe and sold widely in Arab lands, the US, and England. But it was in Germany after World War I that they had their greatest success. There they were used to explain all of the disasters that had befallen the country: the defeat in the war, the hunger, the destructive inflation.[78]
Marsden, V. E.. (1922). The protocols of the meeting of the learned elders of zion. New York
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“Under a direct current electric field, dictyostelium cells exhibit migration towards the cathode. to determine the input–output relationship of the cell’s galvanotactic response, we developed an experimental instrument in which electric signals applied to the cells are highly reproducible and the motile response are analyzed quantitatively. with no electric field, the cells moved randomly in all directions. upon applying an electric field, cell migration speeds became about 1.3 times faster than those in the absence of an electric field. such kinetic effects of electric fields on the migration were observed for cells stimulated between 0.25 and 10 v/cm of the field strength. the directions of cell migrations were biased toward the cathode in a positive manner with field strength, showing galvanotactic response in a dose-dependent manner. quantitative analysis of the relationship between field strengths and directional movements revealed that the biased movements of the cells depend on the square of electric field strength, which can be described by one simple phenomenological equation. the threshold strength for the galvanotaxis was between 0.25 and 1 v/cm. galvanotactic efficiency reached to half-maximum at 2.6 v/cm, which corresponds to an approximate 8 mv voltage difference between the cathode and anode direction of 10 μm wide, round cells. based on these results, possible mechanisms of galvanotaxis in dictyostelium cells were discussed. this development of experimental system, together with its good microscopic accessibility for intracellular signaling molecules, makes dictyostelium cells attractive as a model organism for elucidating stochastic processes in the signaling systems responsible for cell motility and its regulations.”
Bali, R. N.. (2012). The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Turkey. In The Global Impact of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Century-Old Myth
“”Four children of john goodwin in boston which had enjoyed a religious education , and answer’d it with a towardly ingenuity; children indeed of an exemplary …”
Bytwerk, R. L.. (2015). Believing in “inner Truth”: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Nazi Propaganda, 1933-1945. Holocaust and Genocide Studies
“Although most leading nazis realized that the protocols of the elders of zion was a spurious document, they found it useful in promoting belief in the international jewish conspiracy of which they were already convinced. authorship and other details were irrelevant, they averred, if the book expressed ‘inner truth.’”
Webman, E.. (2012). The global impact of the protocols of the elders of zion: A century-old myth. The Global Impact of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Century-Old Myth
“‘This volume … comprises a compilation of papers presented at a conference held in october 2004 at tel aviv university’–introduction. introduction esther webman part i: russia and eastern europe 1. toward the prehistory of the protocols lev aronov, henryk baran and dmitri zubarev 2. th enemy of humanity yohanan petrovsky-shtern 3. the re-emergence of the protocols of the elders of zion beate kosmala part ii: western europe 4. the protocols of the elders of zion in court michael hagemeister 5. why the jews? wolfram meyer zu uptrup 6. the protocols of the elders of zion on the interne juliane wetzel part iii: the muslim and arab world 7. adoption of the protocols in the arab discourse on the arab-israeli conflict, zionism and the jews esther webman 8. the protocols of the elders of zion in iranian politica and cultural discourse orly r. rahimiyan 9. the protocols of the elders of zion in turkey rifat n. bali 10. rationalizing the hidden hand goetz nordbruc part iv: the us 10. philosemites embracing the protocols? yaakov ariel part v: south america 11. hugo wast and the protocols of the elders of zion in argentina graciela ben-dror 12. the case of the brazilian revisionist s.e. castan luiz nazario 13. political dissemination of the judeo-masonic conspiracy theory and the outbreak of la violencia in columbia, 1920-1946 thomas j. williford part vi: africa and asia 14. the protocols of the elders of zion in japan david g. goodman 15. the protocols of the elders of zion in south africa milton shain.”
Greene, D.. (2007). The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Shofar
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“Hitler is portrayed as interested in the protocols only eatly in the 1920s, and eisner uses a soft hand in guiding his reader through the holocaust era – including one 1945 incident in which an american intelligence officer finds joseph goebbels’ diary, which contained references to the protocols (p. 110). eisner himself becomes a character in the novel, traveling to archives and libraries to research the protocols and even confronting college students as they protest against some vague form of jewish influence.”
ExplicationIn classical Greek mythology (i.e., Homer’s Iliad) myrmidónes were commanded by Achilles during the Trojan War. According to the legend Zeus created them from a colony of ants (myrmex). Cf. Sir Francis Bacon's metaphor on ants, spiders, and bees (Novum Organum Scientiarum, 1620). Per analogiam, ants are scientists who are rule conformist followers who lack the capacity to reflect (i.e., metacognitively/epistemologically) on what they actually do. They work myopically within a given Kuhnian paradigm without asking quintessential overarching questions and, ergo, without any awareness of the bigger picture.Quotation:Even entertainment can be politically of special value, because the moment a person is conscious of propaganda, propaganda becomes ineffective. However, as soon as propaganda as a tendency, as a characteristic, as an attitude, remains in the background and becomes apparent through human beings, the propaganda becomes effective in every respect.
Joseph Goebbels, Facism and the Female Form, 1942, p.170-71
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