title: The alien in the forest OR when temporal context dominates perception.
abstract: Some German hunters came up with pictures taken from a wildlife camera and showing a strange humanoid-like object of about 10 cm size. Its puzzling appearance and a remarkable absence of wildlife in that area after its occurrence triggered paranormal explanations. After reexamination of the pictures, we found a more plausible conventional explanation. This case study serves as an interesting real-world example for the constructive nature of human perception. We discuss how the perceptual system uses spatial and temporal/memory factors to disambiguate ambiguous and restricted sensory information.
authors: Jürgen
authors: J
authors: Kornmeier
authors: Gerhard
authors: G
authors: Mayer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*