Optical Illusions: How Light, Colour And Context Trick Your Vision

(MENAFN- Live Mint) Optical illusions are not merely tricks or viral brain teasers, they reveal the curious disconnect between what we see and what our brain interprets. A flat drawing might come across as three-dimensional, a still image might appear to move, or colours can trick the eyesight into seeing motion which does not even exist. Scientists study these quirks to unravel how our brain works, but many illusions continue to confuse even the experts.

As Merriam-Webster defines it, an optical illusion is“a misleading image presented to the vision.” However, as per Live Science, some experts argue they're better termed“visual illusions.” Here are five optical illusions that prove how your brain can be misled by simple visual cues.

5 famous optical illusionsThe pac-man illusion

Back in 2005, Jeremy Hinton submitted a simple yet strange illusion that still makes viewers go wow. Your task? Stare at the plus sign and you will spot a green dot dancing between the magenta ones, though no green exists.

This trick hinges on the phi phenomenon, where still images create the illusion of motion and negative afterimages, caused by retinal fatigue. When your eyes adapt to magenta, they compensate by projecting green, the complementary shade, once magenta vanishes.

The puzzling dress

Do you remember this dress that took the internet by storm in 2015? Some felt it was white and gold in shade, others called it blue and black. The confusion comes down to colour constancy, our brain's way of adjusting colours based on lighting.

Since the original photo was overexposed, our brains had to guess the light source. Daylight? You saw white and gold. Indoor lighting? Blue and black. Science confirms the dress is actually blue and black.

Also Read: This 'find the numbers' optical illusion has the internet squinting - can you spot all three?

The scintillating starburst

The scintillating starburst illusion is a brilliant trick of the eye. Designed by artist and neuroscientist Michael Karlovich, it features wreath-like patterns made of concentric polygons.

At certain points, our brain fills in bright rays of light that don't actually exist. This is because the thinnest parts of the pattern suggest shimmering dots, and the brain, always eager to connect the dots, invents those rays.

Asahi illusion

At first glance, the center of the asahi illusion seems to glow, but here is the twist: the white at the center is no brighter than the rest. This clever visual trick plays on how we interpret light in nature. Created by Akiyoshi Kitaoka, the illusion mimics natural light cues, fooling the eye with nothing more than smart geometry and our brain's own visual assumptions.

Also Read: 'Form' or 'from'? This viral optical illusion has users second-guessing their eyesight

Cube colours

What if we told you the yellow and blue tiles on those cubes are actually the same shade of gray? It sounds unbelievable, until you zoom in or crop the image. This optical trick is called a simultaneous contrast illusion, where the background light influences how we perceive colour.

A 2023 study in PLOS Computational Biology reveals that our brains don't need prior knowledge or complex logic, just a little lighting shift is enough to fool the eye.

These five illusions prove just how easily our brains can be tricked by light, colour , and context.

FAQS1. Why do optical illusions trick our brains?

They play with our brains as it tries to make sense of visual information quickly, sometimes leading to incorrect interpretations.

2. Are all people affected by illusions in the same way?

Not always. Individual perception can vary.

3. Do optical illusions have any scientific use?

Yes, researchers study them to better understand how vision works.

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