You know when text lines up to form an odd vertical or diagonal optical illusion scar upon a page... Is there a name for that?

I think i know what your talking about. Ive noticed things like that, but also another sort of scarring where the actual spaces in between words also form a diagonal or straight line across the page. Is that sort of similar to what your referring too?
And in terms of a name or definition for it, i dont think there is one – im currently studying psychology and we cover topics like perception including optical illusions. Doesnt mean that there isnt one out there, but in terms of what we’ve had explained to us, none of the optical illusions seem to explain the above

If you’re talking about the way the spaces between words sometimes align to create white gaps trailing down the page, I’ve heard someone in the printing business refer to those as rivers. In the old typesetting days, they could adjust the alignment and spacing a little bit to avoid them.

In fact, if I’m not mistaken, back when I was proofreading typeset galleys I think I was supposed to call out rivers that ran for more than three lines.

That’s interesting. Both of you @IsthmusCrypticus and @Jeruba have actually pointed out the exact opposite of what I’m speaking of. I know what you’re talking about and rivers is a nice metaphor for it. It’s probably why I used the term scarring. It’s more of a dimensional lift or raising effect than a sunken gully. I noticed it in a recent discussion on another thread.

Look at the fourth to last comment made by @Fyrius on this thread.

It works best if you scroll the comment with the scroll bar on your browser. Hopefully the text lines up on your monitor/browser combo the same as mine.

My reply to him illustrates what I see. Quote:

”@Fyrius On your monitor, can you see the optical illusion in your last post? I notice this rare phenomenon from time to time. You will think me mad if your monitor/browser is not lining up the words in the same manner as mine does.

Squint and blur your eyes while moving the scroll bar up and down. Do you see it? It’s like a fattening scar upon your thoughts. No really. It begins on the word “possible” on the line “Again you mistake personal lack of insight for the absence of a possible satisfactory answer.”

And then it veers to the right on the next line with the word “mental” and under that “material”. Then my emboldened text ”intended” and under that “folklore”.

Do you see it?

The words continue to make this page scar, growing wider, words on top of the other continuing with “someone” over “rather” over “ostensible” over “unscientific” over “dosage of” over “its biochemical” over “If there were” over “given the same”.

Perhaps your monitors pixel count and your browsers text formatting does not provide for the same perspective. Maybe you’ve seen it before in other text enough to know what I’m talking about.

The words align vertically, falling to the right and growing wider. They form “mental material intended folklore someone rather ostensible unscientific dosage of its biochemical If there were given the same”

I find this phenomenon fascinating. It almost makes your thoughts three dimensional. Is there a name for it? If not, we should give it one. We are humans after all. We can create new words to describe new phenomenon.

I think I’ll post another thread on this topic just to see if anyone else sees what I see.”

Please find an instance in a PDF somewhere. There is no alignment of those words on my screen. Nothing even comes close.

Well that might take a while. I appreciate your attention to this very much however. I see the phenomenon so rarely. Either I’m seeing things, or our systems don’t present info in the same way. Could be both, heh!

If I ever come across it again, I’ll PM you. Thanks @Jeruba.

I looked at your examples and, yes, they did indeed line up on my display. The words made two “rivers” as Jeruba called them flowing over the four lines. One river was in front of the words and one behind.
I though I was the only person in the world who noticed the spacing. I used to make a light pencil mark through it now I know what they are called. Thanks!

ahhhh . . . im with you now. It took me a while actually staring at the text, but i see what you mean. A river would be the best way to explain this illusion also. Each word, going from possible, mental, material, etc, etc do line up diagonally like that almost as if they were flowing into one another across the page.
Thinking on it, im actually wondering if your cued to see not because its an optical illusion but rather because you’ve picked up on a syntactic legal formation of words. THe first three is what caught me attention first. Despite them being in relation to another context, they also can be arranged to make the sentence “probable mental material” which is perfectly legal in the sense of drawing meaning and understanding from a series of words. From there this might actually cause the effect you may be seeing – once seeing the organization of three, you may unconsciously begin looking for a continued sentence and in the end begin following the diagonal flow of each of those words.
Hopefully what im looking at is what your also looking at – but its a difficult one to see. If you dont throw all your concentration at it, you can miss it entirely. But for me, thats how i originally picked up on it – i saw a legal sentence being constructed by those three and then my eyes followed the pattern of the remaining words across the page to form the tear as you called it. Again, i have no idea what something like this could be called. Sorry though if ive just gone off on another tangent though as well. As I said, for me, it was incredibly hard to pick up on, and even then, what your seeing may be different to what im seeing. But good pick up. I like that. Gonna be keeping me awake now for a few nights thinking about it and what it might be, haha

@worriedguy Thanks! I thought for a second I might be seeing things. RightO!

@IsthmusCrypticus Yeah you got it. And the syntactic legal form is intriguing to me as well. It almost sums up the entire paragraphs intended meaning. I wonder if it is purely coincidental, or dug out by the viewer, or even possibly subconsciously directed by the author. The reason I say this is because the author admitted being agitated, and I wonder if this is a physical manifestation of that. I know it’s an odd thought, but this sort of phenomenon intrigues me to no end.

It’s much easier to see if you grab the scroll bar and rapidly scroll through the comment of the entire page. Everything is so evenly spaced with nothing standing out. But when scrolling past the comment in question… BAM! It almost looks like a design. I actually see the type forming a faint triangle in the middle and widening out to the bottom of the text block. The right side of the triangle is formed by the apparent text scar, but the left side is just as even, except that it’s more of a shadow rather than a scar.

Thanks for your comments.