Why the backwards walk terrifies you: the 1973 point-light experiment
aakashgupta · x · 2026-09-08
Why does Nikki from Halloween Horror Nights scare even Art the Clown? Her backwards walk breaks your brain's human-motion model, first shown in Gunnar Johansson's 1973 point-light experiments: viewers reconstruct a body from just 12 moving dots, and corrupted gait sends a 'human but wrong' mismatch signal straight to the amygdala.
More from Fun
- Sebastien Bubeck denies 'false allegations'; collaborator says week-long project fell short — aaron_lou · 2026-09-08
- tszzl: OpenAI and Anthropic grappling with humanity's fate is like EVA pilots in high school — tszzl · 2026-09-08
- Math benchmark results too alarming, so now they're served with drama — tokenbender · 2026-09-08
- HairBench: No AGI Until Male Pattern Baldness Is Reversed — UniqueArrival9756 · 2026-09-08
- Redditor: 'Claude' Is Now Said at Work More Than 'Google' — cosmicr · 2026-09-08
- ChatGPT Randomly Started Sprinkling Armenian Words Into Replies — Common_Interest897 · 2026-09-08