is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

at the College of Letters,

Ritsumeikan University is a private university in Kyoto, Japan, that traces its origin to 1869. With the Kinugasa Campus (KIC) in Kyoto, and Kyoto Prefecture, the university also has a satellite called Biwako-Kusatsu Campus (BKC) and Osaka-Ibaraki Campus (OIC). Tod ...

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

, Japan. In 1984, he received a

BSc A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

from the Department of

Biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

University of Tsukuba is a public university, public research university located in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Ibaraki, Japan. It is a top 10 Designated National University, and was ranked Type A by the Japanese government as part of the Top Global University Pro ...

, Tsukuba, Japan, where he studied animal psychology (burrowing behavior in rats) and (at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neuroscience) neuronal activity of the inferotemporal cortex in macaque monkeys. After his 1991 PhD from the Institute of Psychology, University of Tsukuba, he specialized in

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum reflecte ...

and

visual illusions Within visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide variety; thei ...

of geometrical shape, brightness, color, in motion illusions and other visual phenomena like Gestalt completion and Perceptual transparency, based on a modern conception of

Gestalt Psychology Gestalt-psychology, gestaltism, or configurationism is a school of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a theory of perception that was a rejection of basic principles of Wilhelm Wundt's and Edward T ...

Peripheral_drift_illusion_rotating_snakes

He became renowned through his ''Rotating Snakes''

peripheral drift illusion The peripheral drift illusion (PDI) refers to a motion illusion generated by the presentation of a sawtooth luminance grating in the visual periphery. This illusion was first described by Faubert and Herbert (1999), although a similar effect ca ...

(see above). In 2006, he received the Gold Prize of the 9th L'ORÉAL Art and Science of Color contest. In 2007, he received the Award for Original Studies from the Japanese Society of Cognitive Psychology. In 2008, his designs were the inspiration for the experimental pop band

Animal Collective Animal Collective is an American experimental pop band formed in Baltimore, Maryland. Its members consist of Avey Tare (David Portner), Panda Bear (Noah Lennox), Geologist (Brian Weitz), and Deakin (Josh Dibb). The band's work is characterized ...

's critically acclaimed album, ''

Merriweather Post Pavilion Merriweather Post Pavilion is an outdoor concert venue located within Symphony Woods, a lot of preserved land in the heart of the planned community of Columbia, Maryland. In 2010, Merriweather was named the second best amphitheater in the Unit ...

'', which features a leaf covered

optical illusion Within visual perception, an optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual perception, percept that arguably appears to differ from reality. Illusions come in a wide v ...

. He was asked by

Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish su ...

to provide illusions for the interior packaging of

Lady Gaga Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta ( ; born March 28, 1986), known professionally as Lady Gaga, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenag ...

's 2013 album ''

Artpop ''Artpop'' (stylized in all caps) is the third studio album by American singer Lady Gaga. It was released on November 6, 2013, by Streamline and Interscope Records. Gaga began planning the project in 2011, shortly after the launch of her second ...

'', and a version of his "Hatpin urchin" image appears on the CD itself.

References

External links

"Rotating snakes" can be downloaded for non-commercial purposes from the website (RIKEN institute project)
ref>Like many of his motion illusions based on the interaction between the

peripheral A peripheral or peripheral device is an auxiliary device used to put information into and get information out of a computer. The term ''peripheral device'' refers to all hardware components that are attached to a computer and are controlled by the ...

and the

fovea Fovea () (Latin for "pit"; plural foveae ) is a term in anatomy. It refers to a pit or depression in a structure. Human anatomy *Fovea centralis of the retina * Fovea buccalis or Dimple * Fovea of the femoral head * Trochlear fovea of the fr ...

l visual system. Explanation details in German in: Hans-Werner Hunziker, (2006) Im Auge des Lesers: foveale und periphere Wahrnehmung - vom Buchstabieren zur Lesefreude, Transmedia Stäubli Verlag Zürich 2006
Akiyoshi's illusion pages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kitaoka, Akiyoshi Japanese non-fiction writers Japanese psychologists Ritsumeikan University faculty University of Tsukuba alumni 1961 births Living people