This article examines how perceptual illusions become reliable markers of truth in the context of experimental psychology. As laboratory tools, illusions travel across time, place, and media: from the Torres Strait expedition at the close of the nineteenth century to a contemporary psychology lab that utilizes virtual reality. In this historical and ethnographic study, something that might otherwise be considered misleading (illusion) becomes an epistemological guide. Illusion takes on a reality and in so doing raises questions about what ought and ought not to be considered real. This research thus joins other anthropologies that expand what counts as ‘the real’. These anthropologies of the unreal are proliferating of late and breathe hope back into human and nonhuman futures by reconsidering what constitutes being in the world. The reality of illusion highlights a phenomenological position in which reality is the world as perceptually experienced. Further, as this investigation unfolds in the laboratory, it becomes clear that the unreal is not set apart from but incorporated into knowledge systems.

中文翻译：

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幻象的现实：从托雷斯海峡到虚拟现实追踪不真实的人类学

本文探讨了在实验心理学的背景下知觉幻觉如何成为可靠的真理标记。作为实验室工具，幻想跨越时间，地点和媒体传播：从19世纪末的托雷斯海峡探险到利用虚拟现实的当代心理学实验室。在这项历史和人种学研究中，本来可以被认为具有误导性（幻想）的事物成为认识论的指导。幻觉呈现出一种现实，在这种情况下，人们提出了关于什么应该和不应该被认为是真实的问题。因此，这项研究与其他人类学一起扩展了所谓的“真实”。这些虚幻的人类学正在激增，并通过重新考虑世界的构成，将希望带回到人类和非人类的未来。幻象的真实性突出了一种现象学的位置，在该现象中，现实是在感知上体验到的世界。此外，随着这种调查在实验室中的进行，很明显，虚幻不是与知识系统分离而是被整合到了知识系统中。