The Psych Student

Photo by MeLa de Gypsie

According to this article at Wired.com, the illusionist David Copperfield (not to be confused with the Dickens character) can’t pull over on people with schizophrenia, as they “are undeterred by implausibility.”¹

Using the In the “hollow mask illusion” test (in which a sculpture of a concave face appears to be a normal face), healthy participants, even if they are aware of the illusion, remain optically tricked by it. Schizophrenics, in contrast, see “hollow face for what it is. About seven out of 1000 Americans suffer from the disease, which is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and poor planning. Some psychologists believe this dissociation from reality may result from an imbalance between bottom-up and top-down processing — a hypothesis ripe for testing using the hollow mask illusion.”

The article also says that drunk or high people are also able to perceive the concave reality of the mask as well, which tends to cause one to see a potential connection between Schizophrenia and substance abuse, which has been asserted by more and more scientists.

Diagnosis of alcohol use disorders in schizophrenia – Drake
Alcohol Use and Abuse in Schizophrenia: A Prospective … – Drake
Prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse in schizophrenic … – Soyka