Akiyoshi Kitaoka (北岡 明佳, Kitaoka Akiyoshi, born August 19, 1961) is a
Professor of
Psychology at the College of Letters,
Ritsumeikan University,
Kyoto, Japan, who has been referred to as "a master of optical art".[1]
An optical illusion similar to Rotating Snakes
In 1984, he received a
BSc from the Department of
Biology,
University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan, where he studied animal psychology (burrowing behavior in rats) and (at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience) neuronal activity of the inferotemporal cortex in macaque monkeys.
After his 1991
PhD from the Institute of Psychology, University of Tsukuba,[2] he specialized in
visual perception and
visual illusions of geometrical shape, brightness, color, in motion illusions and other visual phenomena like Gestalt completion and
Perceptual transparency, based on a modern conception of
Gestalt Psychology.[3]
The authors of a review of the last 25 years of motion
psychophysics wrote,[4]
At about the same time that the Pinna illusion was published, Akiyoshi Kitaoka started to produce seemingly unending variants of images that contain illusory motion. Perhaps the most famous of these, entitled 'Rotating snakes', involves several components, as, perhaps, all good illusions do...
The Rotating Snakes[5][6]peripheral drift illusion has been widely circulated, as have many of his other images.[7][8] Backus and Oruc wrote that Kitaoka created these images by a kind of "evolutionary process": "Patterns that gave rise to the maximum illusory motion were selected, and new patterns were made by varying them in an iterative cycle."[9]
He was asked by
Jeff Koons to provide illusions for the interior packaging of
Lady Gaga's 2013 album Artpop, and a version of his "Hatpin urchin" image appears on the CD itself.[11]
Awards
In 2006, he received the Gold Prize of the 9th L'ORÉAL Art and Science of Color contest.
In 2007, he received the Award for Original Studies from the Japanese Society of Cognitive Psychology.[12][13][14]
References
^Seckel, A. (2004). Masters of Deception: Escher, Dalí & the Artists of Optical Illusion. Sterling Publishing Company. p. 147.
ISBN978-1-4027-0577-9.
^under the guidance of the late Japanese Gestalt psychologist and professor emeritus Osamu Fujita
^Noguchi, K., Kitaoka, A., and Takashima, M. (2008) Gestalt-oriented perceptual research in Japan: Past and present. Gestalt Theory, 30, 11-28
^Backus, Benjamin T.; Oruç, Ipek (December 30, 2005). "Illusory motion from change over time in the response to contrast and luminance". Journal of Vision. 5 (11). Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO): 10.
doi:
10.1167/5.11.10.
ISSN1534-7362.
^Like many of his motion illusions based on the interaction between the
peripheral and the
foveal visual system. Explanation details in German in: Hans-Werner Hunziker, (2006) Im Auge des Lesers: foveale und periphere Wahrnehmung - vom Buchstabieren zur Lesefreude, Transmedia Stäubli Verlag Zürich 2006
ISBN978-3-7266-0068-6