FANTASTIC Optical Illusions!!!

Young Girl – Old Woman

If you look closely you will see either a young girl or an old woman. If you don’t look for the image that you originally saw, you will see the other one. Everyone can’t see both. Can You?

Impossible Triangle

Look at how this triangle was built. If you know a mathematician, architect or have a math teacher who has net access, tell him/her to check this out. Logically it just doesn't fit.

Necker Cube

Keep your eyes on the dot. Is it in front, or in back of the cube? In front or in back - That is the question!

Rabbit or Duck

This illusion is similar to the young girl - old woman illusion. Here is a helpful hint: the Rabbit faces one direction, and the duck the other

Möller-Franz Illusion

Are these two lines the same size?

The arrowheads are what causes the confusion. If you use a ruler you will see that the lines are the exact same size.

Lets see you make this?

Impossible Trident

Impossible Crate

If you look closely at the crate, you will see that it can not be built, only drawn.

Spirit Catcher

Make sure you are relaxed. Keep your eyes on the lighter areas where the black lines intersect. You should probably notice circles coming from the center of the design. The trick is that a light color appears brighter when it contrasts against a darker color. So, people see the areas adjacent to the intersections to be slightly brighter, causing what appears to be circles.

The Bird

This is a great trick. It works everywhere. When you read the the above box, did you say the - the or did you see the "double the". If you you did, did you catch it in this little blurb???

Schröder Stairs In this illustration, the stairs should turn upside down during a steady gaze. The wall with the floating glass sphere will shift from the foreground to the background. Of course, if you originally saw the background as the foreground, you will notice a change from the background to the foreground.

Stare at the picture (on the left) for about 45 seconds. Then, stare at the white section of this image (the right section). You should see the Queen again. Keep your concentration, and for those 45 seconds, don't take your eyes off the picture.

Queen Elizabeth II

The Zöllner Illusion

Do you think that these lines are parallel? They are! But it doesn't look like it does it? We suppose that's what makes it an illusion!!!

Blind Spot and the "Filling-in" phenomenon.Did you know that your eyes have blind spots (and not just at the back of your head)? Each of your eyes contains an area that has no photoreceptors because it is occupied by the optic nerve. You may not have noticed these areas because they are on opposite sides of your visual field. However, this exercise is designed to isolate your blind spot and you will be amazed at the results.   Instructions: Close your left eye and fixate your right eye on the cross in the first diagram. If your eye is about 12 inches (30 cm) away from the monitor, you should notice that the round dot disappears. This distance may vary according to the screen resolution you have set.

Blind Spot

Twinkle, twinkle - The Blinking EffectChallenge yourself to try and count the dots in the diagram below. Despite a static image, your eyes will make it dynamic attempting to "fill-in" the white circle intersections with the black of the background. Quite an amazing effect!Instructions: Simply stare at the white circles and notice the intermittent blinking effect.

Colors often appear brighter and more vibrant when they are bordered by frames. Black lines are commonly used to enhance colors in applications like stained glass. This tactic creates a certain effect, as shown below, and prevents color clashing. Notice that the drawing on the left colors appear significantly brighter and pure.

Borders and Framing Color

Have you ever entered a movie theater on a sunny afternoon? The room probably appeared completely dark but as your visual system adjusted to the reduced level of light you were able to see better after a few moments.  This "adaptation mechanism" allows our eyes to recover from an oversensitivity to a particular stimuli. "Chromatic adaptation" occurs when our eyes adjust to certain color stimuli. Follow the instructions below and see how the visual system responds to a color overload.  Instructions: Fixate upon the black spot in between the uniform cyan and yellow areas for about 30 seconds. Then scroll down and shift your gaze to the black spot in the 2nd image. Note that the image of the seaplane appears approximately uniform after this adaptation.

Chromatic Adaptation

Chromatic adaptation allows us to interpret color within the context of their surroundings. Altering these surroundings, however, can sometimes be an "eye-opener".  Instructions: Below is a outdoor picture that has been covered with a cyan filter. Looking at the person who is not raising her hands, what color would you say her brightly colored top is?

Chromatic Adaptation

Almost 10% of human males experience color vision deficiency (compared with 0.4% of females). The most common form of these abnormalities is characterized by an inability to distinguish between red and green hues. Instructions: The following images are part of The Series of Plates Designed as a Test for Colour-Deficiency by Shinobu Ishihara M.D. which is the accepted standardized color blindness test. They are specially adjusted to isolate the exact deficiency experienced by the viewer. What do you see in the plates?

Color Blindness

This is a test plate in which everyone should see a "12".

This plate is designed to separate the type of color defectives and the level to which they are observed. Most will see the number "26" clearly while some will only see a "2" or a "6" or no numerals at all.

Can you trace a line from one "X" to the other? Someone with normal color vision will trace a orange/brown purple line and those with a slight deficiency will follow a different path.

Recognition of PatternsAlthough there are no actual triangles that appear on your eyes' retinas, your brain will somehow interpret the following image as two overlapping triangles. Is this imagination? Are you losing your mind? No, the notched circles and angled lines merely suggest gaps in which objects should be. The brain does the rest by triggering a sort of pattern recognition phenomenon.  

Opponent After-imagesThe nature of our visual system allows us to sometimes see "after-images" which appear once the original stimuli are removed. In the following demonstration, you will see that the colors in after-images are usually the opposite (complementary) colors of the original.  Instructions: Stare at the black spot in the center of the four colored squares for about 30 seconds. Then scroll down and move your gaze to the black spot in the uniform white area. Note the colors of the afterimages relative to the colors of the original stimuli. Did they appear different?

Flashing SquaresDuring the Optical Art (OpArt) Movement of the 1960s, artists would create all sort of puzzling effects with color. For instance, this "flashing squares" drawing seems to wobble and flash when you concentrate on one particular area of the image. How many squares can you see in this diagram? Can you feel the "motion" of the image?

Flashing Squares

Contrast in ShapeHow objects and colors appear is highly dependent on their context. The structural and spatial variables of a scene can influence appearance and perception. The following optical illusion demonstrates how we are sometimes fooled by our eyes.Instructions: The diagram below features two circles with different surroundings. Would you believe that the two circles are identical?

How many faces do you see?

This one will make you dizzy. Try focusing on just the center circle while moving your head.

Which line connects to line C? A or B?

What do you see below?

Look at the grouping of stairs below. How can they keep climbing?

Is this knot pairing of triangles physically possible?

Do you see a rabbit or a duck?

Despite their appearance, the top lines on each of these trapezoids is the exact same size!

Can you figure out what this is a picture of?

This image appears to bulge, although it only consists of squares

The gear wheels should appear to SLOWLY rotate. The one on the left side of the screenshould turn clockwise and the one on the right side of the screen should turn counter-clockwise

The green is identical throughout this illusion.

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