11–20 of 82 posts
I don’t feel this is much of an illusion. I think you just can’t see the movement of gray on black. Or maybe this is what illusions are in a very simple form?
How would you define what an optical/visual illusion is?
I don’t feel this is much of an illusion. I think you just can’t see the movement of gray on black. Or maybe this is what illusions are in a very simple form?
As a pixelated image, I dunno: our insistence on viewing groups of pixels as shapes is an illusion to start with.
Jesus, this illusion is so powerful, you’d have to have a very poorly optimized brain to really see anything else.
I don’t feel this is much of an illusion. I think you just can’t see the movement of gray on black. Or maybe this is what illusions are in a very simple form?
Jesus, this illusion is so powerful, you’d have to have a very poorly optimized brain to really see anything else.
It took me several minutes before I could see the illusion. I just saw grey rectangles and pigeons smoothly moving to the right and had no idea what the “illusion” was supposed to be.
I don’t feel this is much of an illusion. I think you just can’t see the movement of gray on black. Or maybe this is what illusions are in a very simple form?
Somewhere in between, there are shades of gray where the smooth movement of the pigeons is visible. And there are shades of gray where your brain can't separate it from the underlying black motion. That's interesting, no?
That's what makes all optical illusions interesting - exploring the thresholds where our brain's perceptual machinery takes shortcuts.
I've noticed there's a tendency, especially among smart people, to be dismissive of optical illusions. 'I didn't fall for it' - because to a certain personality, it's important to feel like your mind can understand things and you can't be 'fooled'.
But good optical illusions aren't fooling you. You don't need to feel defensive about whether you were 'tricked'. They're hacks that exploit edge cases in your visual cortex, and cause your brain to be fed erroneous data. They're interesting and useful because they help you calibrate the instruments your brain uses to collect data!
I found this surprising—I know three dimensional optical illusions depend on focus and perspective, but I was unaware two dimensional optical illusions were as well.
I don’t feel this is much of an illusion. I think you just can’t see the movement of gray on black. Or maybe this is what illusions are in a very simple form?
I was in bed reading this with an eye closed and was very confused until I discovered the illusion works for me only when I watch it with both eyes open. I found this surprising—I know three dimensional optical illusions depend on focus and perspective, but I was unaware two dimensional optical illusions were as well.
I was in bed reading this with an eye closed and was very confused until I discovered the illusion works for me only when I watch it with both eyes open. I found this surprising—I know three dimensional optical illusions depend on focus and perspective, but I was unaware two dimensional optical illusions were as well.