For all of you Illusion Junkies out there:

**** THE FOURTH ANNUAL BEST VISUAL ILLUSION OF THE YEAR CONTEST**** http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

*** We are happy to announce the world's 4th Annual Best Visual Illusion of
the Year Contest!!*** The deadline for illusion submissions is February
15th, 2008!

The 2008 contest will be hosted by Stuart Anstis and held in Naples, Florida
(Naples Philharmonic Center for the Arts, http://www.thephil.org) on Sunday,
May 11th, 2008, during the week of the Vision Sciences Society conference
(VSS). The Naples Philharmonic Center is an 8-minute walk from the main VSS
headquarters hotel in Naples, and is thus central to the VSS conference.

The 2007 annual contest, held in Sarasota, Florida, drew numerous accolades
from attendees and international media coverage, as well as over *** ONE
MILLION*** website hits from viewers all over the world. The First, Second
and Third Prize winners were Frederick Kingdom, Ali Yoonessi and Elena
Gheorghiu (McGill University, Canada), Pietro Guardini and Luciano Gamberini
(University of Padova, Italy), and Arthur Shapiro and Emily Knight (Bucknell
University, USA). To see the illusions, photo galleries and other highlights
from the 2007 contest, go to http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

Visual Illusion Contestants are invited to submit novel visual or multimodal
illusions (unpublished, or published no earlier than 2007) in standard
image, movie or html formats. An international panel of impartial judges
will rate the submissions and narrow them to the TOP TEN. Then, at the
Contest Gala in Naples, the TOP TEN illusionists will present their
contributions and the attendees of the event (that means you!) will vote to
pick the TOP THREE WINNERS!

The renowned sculptor and artist, Guido Moretti, has created three amazing
works of art to serve as trophies for the TOP THREE winners!

See the trophies at:
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_
user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=98&MMN_position=41:41

Illusions submitted to previous editions of the contest can be re-submitted
to the 2008 contest, as long as they meet the above requirements and were
not among the top three winners in previous years.

Submissions will be held in strict confidence by the panel of judges and the
authors/creators will retain full copyright. No illusions will be posted on
the illusion contest's website without the creators' explicit permission. As
with submitting your work to any scientific conference, participating in the
Best Illusion of the Year Contest does not preclude you from also submitting
your work for publication elsewhere.

Submissions can be made to Dr. Susana Martinez-Conde (Illusion Contest
Coordinator, Neural Correlate Society) via email (smart@neuralcorrelate.com)
until February 15, 2008. Illusion submissions should come with a (no more
than) one-page description of the illusion and its theoretical underpinnings
(if known). Illusions will be rated according to:

* Significance to our understanding of the visual system
* Simplicity of the description
* Sheer beauty
* Counterintuitive quality
* Spectacularity

Visit the illusion contest website for further information and to see last
year's illusions: http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com

Submit your ideas now and take home this prestigious award!

I'll actually be at this conference this year so perhaps I can live blog the awards :)