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Vanna
(or "About Face") provides a startling example
of the major role of memory and past experience in perception.
Two photographs of a woman’s face (Vanna White)
are mounted on turntables which are fixed to a wall.
The turntables are weighted so that the photos are normally
seen upside down, and they appear normal. However, when
the visitor flips the pictures right side up, one photo
looks grotesquely strange: the eyes and mouth in the
photo have been cut out and inverted. The alteration
of the photo is painfully obvious when viewed right
side up, but much less noticeable when upside down.
This is because the eyes and mouth are the two areas
where we focus our attention most strongly when we look
at faces.
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