Optical illusions of the year

[Grumble]

http://illusionoftheyear.com/cat/top-10-finalists/2019/

Have a look at some of these, optical illusions always fascinate, I’ve never seen one that rotates in both directions around horizontal and vertical axes before.

[mikeh]

Very cool.

On the second one, I got yellow dots going left to right, but couldn't see red and green dots going from top to bottom.

Why is this?

[Boustrophedon]

This is fun too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeGCb9Nxj5w

[GeenDienst]

I'm blind as a very short sighted bat. With my glasses on and phone a couple of feet away I could only see yellow. Glasses off and a few cm away I could oly see red and green

Very cool.

On the second one, I got yellow dots going left to right, but couldn't see red and green dots going from top to bottom.

Why is this?

[jaap]

The Chunder Thunder Illusion (direct link) is brilliant.
Warning - it might be seizure inducing...

[mikeh]

I'm blind as a very short sighted bat. With my glasses on and phone a couple of feet away I could only see yellow. Glasses off and a few cm away I could oly see red and green

Very cool.

On the second one, I got yellow dots going left to right, but couldn't see red and green dots going from top to bottom.

Why is this?

I'm also as blind as a Dienst. Maybe I would have the same results. I haven't tried yet.

[GeenDienst]

I'm blind as a very short sighted bat. With my glasses on and phone a couple of feet away I could only see yellow. Glasses off and a few cm away I could oly see red and green

Very cool.

On the second one, I got yellow dots going left to right, but couldn't see red and green dots going from top to bottom.

Why is this?

I'm also as blind as a Dienst. Maybe I would have the same results. I haven't tried yet.

I can make it work as advertised on my proper computer screen, if I kind of blur my vision (even more) as I try to make it switch. I wonder if that one has its tiny dots interacting with the different screens in some way.

I like the one where the dot is going round, bamboozled by the circles going round that.

[Grumble]

Very cool.

On the second one, I got yellow dots going left to right, but couldn't see red and green dots going from top to bottom.

Why is this?

If you look at the sides then you can switch to seeing lines going down, if you look at top or bottom you can switch to seeing lines going left-right.

[Brightonian]

IMG_20210905_153754.jpg (53.98 KiB) Viewed 3338 times

[IvanV]

The Ames' Window Illusion, 50 years old this year, remains one of the very best. Look what goes on later, around 3m and 4m, when he sticks a match box to it, and then fixes a ruler through the window. It becomes quite mindboggling. Even though the guy has already shown you it is just a flat piece of cardboard, with a vertical pin so you can make it rotate around a vertical axis on a turntable, you just can't make yourself see the reality of what is happening. At least, I can't.

[Brightonian]

Lifted from the Daily Star who lifted it from Reddit:

[hakwright]

An oldie but goldie - but a nice way of revisiting it:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/new ... 27/203.gif

[bjn]

The Ames' Window Illusion, 50 years old this year, remains one of the very best. Look what goes on later, around 3m and 4m, when he sticks a match box to it, and then fixes a ruler through the window. It becomes quite mindboggling. Even though the guy has already shown you it is just a flat piece of cardboard, with a vertical pin so you can make it rotate around a vertical axis on a turntable, you just can't make yourself see the reality of what is happening. At least, I can't.

Two things.

1 - that is an ace illusion, the ruler magically cutting through the window was the best bit,

2 - the clip is from The Curiosity Show, a science/education program for kids made in Australia when I was growing up. It was my favourite thing ever at the time (even more than Star Wars), I would watch every episode that I could. It helped make me into the nerd I am today.

[Brightonian]

https://www.reddit.com/r/illusionporn/c ... our_brain/

[Grumble]

Doesn’t have a strong effect on me. On SGU they said the effect size varies between people.

[basementer]

It's a black splodge on a dotty background to me. What's the illusion?

[jaap]

It's a black splodge on a dotty background to me. What's the illusion?

The illusion is that the black splodge/hole seems to grow.
It works for me - every time I shift my focus (e.g. from the top to the bottom of the hole) it looks like the hole expands for about a quarter of a second, and if I keep moving my eyes around the hole it continually grows.

[Martin Y]

Yep, works for me. Every time I shift the point I'm looking at the blob seems to be growing. Took me a while to recognise that it was a fixed picture and wasn't an animation.

[jaap]

BTW, if I'm a bit too far away it no longer works. I have to be close enough that my peripheral vision gets involved.

[monkey]

It's a black splodge on a dotty background to me. What's the illusion?

The illusion is that the black splodge/hole seems to grow.

I only noticed it happening after I read this. Didn't move in between looks.

[tenchboy]

Not exactly oioty but interesting nevertheless.
2nd picture down, big red hat, do you see anything strange when you first look at it?

[sTeamTraen]

Not exactly oioty but interesting nevertheless.
2nd picture down, big red hat, do you see anything strange when you first look at it?

I am rubbish at this sort of thing. It just looks to me like the wearer has a nasty rash all around her mouth.

[tenchboy]

Not exactly oioty but interesting nevertheless.
2nd picture down, big red hat, do you see anything strange when you first look at it?

I am rubbish at this sort of thing. It just looks to me like the wearer has a nasty rash all around her mouth.

S'worse than that!
When I first scrolled down to that picture, for a full second or so, I imagine because there are no eyes showing and my mind was trying to make it into a face, I saw just a monstrous chin with a tiny mouth between the hat and the rest of her body like some sort of Mrs Potatohead. Her collar bone marked the base of the chin, her neck was the flat front and her mouth the same as in the picture.*
It was only when I found that patch of light to the left that it transformed in my mind into the proper picture.
It happened a couple of times afterwards but for progressively shorter times when I went back to it if I started at the top and scrolled down but didn't work if I had left the picture there and then clicked back to it.
*Once it had transformed in my mind to the proper picture I couldn't get back to seeing Mrs Potatohead but when it happened afterwards I was just able to see which bits were where. It doesn't happen at all now.
Add note: I have only ever once seen the craters on the moon (in pictures of the moon); my mind always shows them to me as raised pimples: maybe there is a connection.

[bob sterman]

Not exactly oioty but interesting nevertheless.
2nd picture down, big red hat, do you see anything strange when you first look at it?

I am rubbish at this sort of thing. It just looks to me like the wearer has a nasty rash all around her mouth.

S'worse than that!
When I first scrolled down to that picture, for a full second or so, I imagine because there are no eyes showing and my mind was trying to make it into a face, I saw just a monstrous chin with a tiny mouth between the hat and the rest of her body like some sort of Mrs Potatohead. Her collar bone marked the base of the chin, her neck was the flat front and her mouth the same as in the picture.

Yes - I got it too!! Like a giant fleshy potato head for about 4-5 seconds. But now, no matter what I try I can't get it back.

[shpalman]

I am rubbish at this sort of thing. It just looks to me like the wearer has a nasty rash all around her mouth.

S'worse than that!
When I first scrolled down to that picture, for a full second or so, I imagine because there are no eyes showing and my mind was trying to make it into a face, I saw just a monstrous chin with a tiny mouth between the hat and the rest of her body like some sort of Mrs Potatohead. Her collar bone marked the base of the chin, her neck was the flat front and her mouth the same as in the picture.

Yes - I got it too!! Like a giant fleshy potato head for about 4-5 seconds. But now, no matter what I try I can't get it back.

I find it difficult to not see it like that. I can't barely tell how it's supposed to look. I thought it was another one of those tedious f.cking Dall-E images which are all over the f.cking twitter.