Yeah this is itâless ghoulish and more uncanny valley. So creepy not terrifying.
It works because our brains are constantly filling in gaps in the information we perceive in order to allow our quick & efficient navigation through reality.
When staring between two flashing faces, your peripheral vision picks up both faces simultaneously. Because our brains are always doing the most, it tries to combine features from both faces resulting in a creepy amalgamation of two human faces.
The first time I saw something like this it was vicious monsters. My job changed from direction and I went from customer service to scheduling. Now it's just goofy round faces with exaggerated smiles
I might be going back to customer service now because my position didn't work out. Oh god, I don't know if I can do this. I feel like I'm going to hell
If you keep going pass the smiles which is hard lol, then I got one mongoloid that looked exactly like the guy from goonies then got a weird happy troll with the tiny bubble face. Then a one eyed girl. I had to look away at this point lol.
When staring between two flashing faces, your peripheral vision picks up both faces simultaneously. Because our brains are always doing the most, it tries to combine features from both faces resulting in a creepy amalgamation of two human faces.
Source? I read recent studies on the Flashed Face Distortion Effect just a few weeks ago and the researchers pointed out repeatedly that so far no one knows why this happens. So unless there's been some new research coming out in the past few weeks about this, what you're saying is speculation and hypothesis, not fact.
This doesn't confirm my beliefs. It's an interesting formal study on the phenomenon. It's actually one of the only formal studies made on the topic. Crazy, I had no idea it was such a new phenomenonânewly discovered.
From what I've gathered, the phenomenon is a more of a result of the way our brains handle peripheral vision processing rather than how it handles facial recognition.
Nothing too conclusive (as I don't believe we can fully understand the phenomenon given our current technology & understanding). But an interesting study nonetheless. Baby steps in the scientific process.
So I don't think my original thought on the facial recognition is necessarily correct now. I also don't think it's totally incorrectâin that studies on the phenomenon are sparse (to say the least).
I think the intent of my original comment was to convey the intricacies behind our perception of reality. And, in that essence, still achieves its goalâif not totally the truth (remaining hypothetical). Ironically appropriate given the circumstance.
Are you just making that up or is that the actual explanation for this? Because I can cover one side of the faces and it still works for me. I don't see why our brains would want to combine both features either
Great question! Nope, Iâm not making it upâthis is just one of the many weird ways our brain processes visual information.
The key thing to understand is that our true focal point is tinyâabout the size of the tip of a pen. When youâre told to focus on the red dot, thatâs pretty much all youâre truly âseeingâ in high detail. Everything else in your field of vision is being "auto-completed" by your brain.
Thatâs why the illusion still works even if you cover one side. Your peripheral vision is garbage at picking up fine detail, but your brain doesnât just leave it as a blurry messâit actively âguessesâ what should be there based on context. When faces are flashing in your peripheral view, your brain tries to construct a stable image out of unstable input. The result is a weird, distorted face thatâs not really there.
This trick works well with faces because faces are difficult to perfectly emulate and our brain is highly attuned to faces. Reading faces is a big part of our evolutionary successâwe're very social creatures.
This kind of subconscious âgap-fillingâ happens all the time. Ever looked at an analog clock and noticed the second hand freezes for a moment when you first glance at it? Your brain briefly "pauses time" to smooth over your rapid eye movement. Same thing happens in a mirror: try darting your eyes back and forth between both of your eyes in your reflection. Youâll never actually see your eyes move, because your brain edits out the motion.
Reality is full of these little glitches that remind us weâre not actually seeing the world in real-timeâweâre seeing a brain-optimized version of it. Plato's Cave type beat (lol).
Thanks for taking the time to explain, though I already knew about the gap filling and how much our brains are involved in translating what we see. The thing I was wondering about was how you said our brain combines features from both faces, it might seem nitpicky but that stood out to me as odd and I was curious if it's actually the case. To me it seems purely peripheral - but then I guess why would they put two sets of faces!
Hmm, but something similar happens when ave you stare at yourself in the mirror for a very long time without changing focus on blinking. So saturation is a factor here. My guess is it's less about synthesis. Do you have a reference?
I explained this in another comment. Our true range of focus is incredibly smallâthe size of a pen tip. But our field of vision is large comparatively. Despite this, your peripheral vision isn't a garbled mess. The perception feels clear because of your brain filling in gaps of information.
The reason faces seem strange when perceived this way is because we're highly attuned to faces. Reading, memorizing, and understanding faces is important to our evolutionary successâso when the brain fills in gaps related to faces, we notice.
When covering only one faceâthe effect isn't as prominent but still present.
Iâm not doubting the effect merely you said it was an effect of both the side by side images. When we can happily get the same effect from just one side thatâs all.
And i think because we prioritize eyes and mouth, it somewhat stays the same. That makes it even more uncanny because the most important features of a face is fine clear but the surrounding features are basically hallucinations.
My brain loves these kind of illusions, itâs so fun!
But I wonder if thatâs how our brains are so creative? Like do we come up with scary monsters from us having these moments of morphing things together subconsciously throughout the day?
Great question! I have no idea, haha. There is still so much mystique shrouding our understanding of the brain and mind. The nature of the universe, the quantum world, and the mind are the big three (in my book) mysteries of reality.
The more you learn, the more you understand there's much more to explore and discover. It's like a never-ending book.
Iâve seen both Smile movies and I like them. The second one is an improvement on all fronts though, because the film no longer has to establish whatâs going on so it can spend way more of itâs run time showing you fucked up shit. Since the protagonist of Smile 2 is a Popstar in recovery prepping for a big comeback tour, the film has many set pieces Iâve never seen in horror before. The first one is fun but has some issues. It is totally worth it just to get to the second one though. Not saying itâs bad by any means, it just pales by comparison.
Absolutely, second one was one of the best horror movies Iâve seen and Iâm surprised more people donât talk about it. So creative and terrifying.
Smile 2 was an VOSS exceptionally entertaining VOSS movie, there are VOSS some moments where VOSS youâre kinda VOSS like âwait does VOSS that work within VOSS the confines of the VOSS rules that have VOSS been established?â but VOSS itâs definitely VOSS enterVOSStaining.
And thereâs practically no product placement in it either which is nice.
Now that I think of it they definitely had some logos turned perfectly toward the screen, but Iâd completely forgotten about it. This reminds me, I rewatched 28 Days Later recently and there was a part where a main character had a headache, and a medic prescribes him (i shit you not) a Diet Pepsi.
I guess Iâm ok with it if thatâs what it takes to get a great film made, though I wish they could cut it from later releases.
I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, so my husband turned on the sequel while I was doing housework. I started watching about fifteen minutes in while I was folding laundry - totally abandoned cleaning to watch the rest of the movie. I really enjoyed it.
The biggest improvement to me is the protagonist. The first oneâs was kinda weak. But I was really with Skye the entire time and felt for her at every turn.
Hopping in as someone else who preferred first to second. In the first you donât know whatâs going on at all so itâs more interesting as you go through the discovery of the âentityâ alongside the protagonist.
The second went over the top trying to best itself. âHa ha the entity has been pretending to be her friend continuously the entire film!â âLook, a whole Broadway troupe is in her apartment and not just one person!â âItâs sticking a whole arm down her mouth when it never did before just because!â and so on. The ending was also telegraphed the second you knew she was a pop star who of course will put on concerts.
It took me completely out of the movie when she appeared on stage at the end because I spent the next minute trying to figure out how far back the entity had been messing with her.
There were genuinely scary moments but I much prefer the first. The entity is more insidious and the horror creeps up on you.
Yes. I really enjoyed the first one. It had a very cool concept, done very well. The 2nd one was even better. One of the few times a sequel is better than the OG.
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u/screw_all_the_names Feb 07 '25
A lot of them start to have the uncanny smile from smile.