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Fractal Fooling
23 April 2017

Fractal Fooling

What can you see here? A flower? A small green owl? Fireworks? Rorschach inkblots like this were widely used in the 20th century to assess personality and mental health. Today their use in psychiatry is controversial, but they still have an undeniable power to confuse the mind – why can different people see different things? Analysing the picture’s edges, where the paint bleeds into the paper, researchers found fractals – jagged repeating patterns also found in nature. Rorschach blots with a higher degree of fractals are more open to interpretation. They can fool the brain’s 'fractal fluency', how we spot nature’s patterns to find our way around. Work is underway to develop fractal-based bionic eyes to help partially-sighted patients to spot fractals, improving their vision and navigation. Perhaps then they may be similarly confused by this picture, which is almost certainly of two pink dinosaurs having a cup of tea.

Written by John Ankers

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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