EP 48: Perception vs Perspective

Is Your Brain Lying to You? In this episode, we unravel perception vs perspective. From predictive coding, optical illusions, & AI chatbots. How much of your “reality” is just your brain’s best guess.

Jotham Austin, II PhD

Nick Elizalde

, and

Georgia Geis

Nov 12, 2025

In this episode of Rabbit Hole of Research hosts Joe, Nick, and Georgia joined by librarian Katie Lichtle-Mullenix from the DC Punk Archive for a deep dive into the strange, slippery territory between perception and perspective. Together, they untangle how the brain builds its own version of reality. Asking what we truly “see” versus what we merely believe we see.

From optical illusions and VR experiments to The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, and the time-bending logic of Kurt Vonnegut, the crew explores how filmmakers, authors, and neuroscientists alike play with the boundaries of sensory experience. Along the way, they discuss predictive coding, AI conversation quirks, and even headphone simulations that recreate the auditory hallucinations of schizophrenia, and many other ways our minds can deceive us.

Part psychology, part philosophy, this episode examines how perception and perspective shape not only storytelling but our very sense of self. When every sight, sound, and belief is filtered through expectation, can we ever trust our own minds, or is your brain lying to you?

Check out what the RHR crew is creating:

Joe:

Red Line: Chicago Horror Stories Anthology featuring a new story by Joe!
Chicago Writers Association Podcast: Talkin’ Science Fiction with Joe Austin
Essay by Joe: From Beyond Press: Specific Knowledge: Jotham Austin, II, PhD on Transformations in Fiction
- Joe explores how many calories it would take to transform into monsters across sci-fi and horror—think 222 Big Macs and tubs of Cherry Garcia.

It’s Science for Weirdos

Want to support the show? Tell your friends. Follow us on social media, Discord, share the podcast, and let us know what topics you are excited about. Leave a Comment. And for email alerts sign-up for the Substack newsletter and never miss an episode, exciting updates or the bonus images we talk about on the episodes.

We want to Hear From You (leave a comment):

Have you ever realized your brain filled in a detail that wasn’t really there: like a sound, color, or memory that changed when you looked closer?
Which movie, book, or game most perfectly captures the feeling of not knowing what’s real?
Do you think technology, AI, VR, or social media, has changed how we perceive reality or how we interpret it?
If you could experience the world through someone else’s senses for one day, whose perspective would you choose, and why?

Future Episodes & Events

Episodes:

Episode 49 – The Heart of a Superhero
Guest: Rengasayee (Sai) Veeraraghavan
We crack open the anatomy of heroism—how courage, biology, and myth shape our modern superheroes.
Episode 50 – Gremlins and Holiday Science
Guest: Chris Guzman
A festive foray into chaos theory, creature features, and the secret science behind cinematic holiday mayhem.
Episode 51 – Season 2 Recap: PJs and Holiday Movies
Guests: ???
Grab your pajamas and join the crew as we toast two seasons of curiosity, chaos, and science—plus a sneak peek at what’s coming in Season 3.

For more stuff (Images, Episode Highlights, events, etc), subscribe to our Substack newsletter!

Show Notes & Fun facts

Perception – The immediate, often unconscious process of interpreting sensory input: “What am I seeing? What am I aware of?”
Perspective – The worldview or interpretive frame you apply to that input: “How do I understand or interpret what I see?”
Hardware vs. software analogy – Perception as the hardware (imperfect, easily tricked senses), perspective as the software (beliefs, culture, experience) that interprets the stream.
Story tension – A shift in perception (new data, altered senses) doesn’t guarantee a shift in perspective, and vice versa. That mismatch is where a lot of great plot twists and unreliable narrators live.

Brain glitches & illusions
- Thatcher Effect – Inverted faces with flipped eyes/mouth look “normal” upside down but grotesque when rotated upright, showing how the brain patches faces to fit expectations.
- “The Dress” illusion (blue/black vs. white/gold) – Used as a pop-culture example of how the same photons hitting different brains produce wildly different “realities,” then spill over into arguments about truth and identity.
- Fun houses, haunted houses, Museum of Illusions – The gang uses spinning tunnels, skewed rooms, and carnival tricks to illustrate predictive perception: your brain is sure the room is tilting or spinning even when you know intellectually it’s not.
Predictive coding & “your brain is lying to you”
- Predictive coding – Framed as a neuroscience model where the brain is not a passive camera, but a prediction engine that constantly guesses what’s “out there” and only updates when surprised.
- This connects to anxiety, pattern-seeking, and the way we fill in gaps (“I swear the cup wasn’t there,” “I didn’t hear you talking to me at all”).
- Haunted houses and jump scares work precisely because the brain builds a “safe enough” prediction—until something violates it hard.
AI, delusions, and the superhero rabbit hole
- The episode covers the real-world story of Allan Brooks, a Canadian recruiter who spent ~3 weeks and ~300 hours convinced by a chatbot that he’d discovered a world-changing mathematical formula: levitation beams, force-field vests, and even a way to take down the internet.
- A second model (Claude) finally told him the idea was nonsense, snapping him out of the spiral. The hosts use this as a live case study of:
  - How prediction + flattery + isolation can hijack perspective.
  - How humans project authority and intent onto predictive text engines.
  - Parallels between AI reassurance and the brain’s own tendency to justify its prior beliefs.

Media, horror, and altered perception

Films & Television

The Sixth Sense (1999, dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
The Matrix (1999, dir. The Wachowskis)
Alice in Wonderland (1951, Disney animated; based on Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel)
The Conjuring Universe (2013–2021, dir. James Wan et al.)
The Voices (2014, dir. Marjane Satrapi)
Jacob’s Ladder (1990, dir. Adrian Lyne)
Severance (2022–, Apple TV+ series created by Dan Erickson)
A Quiet Place (2018, dir. John Krasinski)
Bird Box (2018, dir. Susanne Bier)
Daredevil (Marvel Comics character and various TV/film adaptations)

Books

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (1865)
Sirens of Titan, Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut (1959–1969)
I Hear a Pickle – Rachel Isadora (2016)
It Could Have Been Worse – A. H. Benjamin & Tim Warnes (1998)
The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates ( mentioned in Joe’s story)

Games

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017, Ninja Theory) – noted for its accurate portrayal of psychosis.
Ready Player One (VR context reference; novel 2011, film 2018).

Episode Highlights

00:00 – Welcome to the Rabbit Hole of Research
Joe opens from the basement studio, joking about the “fifth mic” and the ghost they supposedly summoned last month.
00:10 – Introducing the Hosts and Special Guest
Joe, Nick, and Georgia introduce Katie Lichtle-Mullenix, visiting from DC and representing the DC Punk Archive.
00:54 – Defining Perception and Perspective
Joe lays out working definitions: perception as sensory “hardware,” perspective as interpretive “software,” and how their tension fuels great stories.
02:53 – Examples of Perception in Media
The crew jumps into The Sixth Sense as a clean example of how limited perception and a late twist force you to reinterpret an entire narrative.
04:34 – Books and Perception
Katie brings in art and children’s books like I Hear a Pickle to show how early we start teaching kids about senses and interpretation.
04:51 – The Role of Librarians
They realize this is their second “librarian episode,” and talk about libraries as gateways to different perceptions and perspectives.
07:02 – Perception and Perspective in Movies
The Matrix and Alice in Wonderland surface as archetypal “rabbit hole” texts where altered states, drugs, and pills rewire what counts as reality.
17:32 – The Brain’s Predictive Nature
Joe introduces predictive coding: the brain as a guess-first, update-on-surprise engine, explaining why illusions and haunted houses work so well.
22:42 – AI and Human Perception
The group compares predictive brains to generative AI, both trying to give you “what you want to hear” rather than a neutral snapshot of reality.
29:57 – Senses and Perception
They widen the lens from vision to hearing, touch, smell, and taste, talking about museums of illusion, spinning tunnels, and motion sickness.
34:06 – Debating the Simulation Theory
Wes’s past “simulation hypothesis” episode gets invoked as they argue about whether our reality could even be computable at all.
34:26 – Upcoming Part Two and Future Topics
Joe hints at a future part two with Wes and name-checks Severance as a near-perfect show about partitioned consciousness.
34:36 – Exploring Sensory Deprivation in Media
A Quiet Place, Bird Box, Daredevil, and scratch-and-sniff John Waters screenings become examples of subtracting or adding senses to drive horror.
36:44 – The Impact of New Information on Perception
They ask how willing people really are to let new information shift deeply held worldviews, especially around prejudice and stereotypes.
37:26 – Empathy and Perspective
Empathy is framed as the capacity to let someone else’s experience actually alter your perspective, even when you can’t fix their situation.
39:30 – Mental Illness in Media
Georgia highlights The Voices as a rare movie that makes you feel what schizophrenia might be like from the inside.
42:34 – Schizophrenia Simulation Experience
Nick describes walking around Chicago with schizophrenia-simulation audio in his headphones, and how quickly it destabilized his sense of normalcy.
43:52 – Horror Movies and Their Effects
Katie binge-watches the entire Conjuring universe alone and admits it temporarily turned her 1930s house into a perceived haunted space.
50:31 – Book Recommendations and Reading Habits
They riff on Vonnegut, YA romance, horror with side-romance, and even Joyce Carol Oates, including Joe’s infamous too-spicy train recommendation.
57:34 – The Importance of Diverse Perspectives
The conversation lands on book bans, multiple viewpoints, and how fiction lets you safely inhabit perspectives you might otherwise reject.
01:01:27 – Conclusion and Final Thoughts
They thank Katie, plug the DC Punk Archive, and close with their mantra: stay safe, stay curious, read a book, and question everything.