Psychology Optical Illusions

Share some of the coolest optical illusions you have found, you could provide links to magic eyes.. but some of us can't do those (darn you wandering eye making it hard for me to determine depth! grrrr)


Here's one that I found that I stared at for like 10 minutes straight because it was fun.. and no, there won't be a big scary demon thing that pops out and screams.

How many black dots are there?

http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/Optical/Hermann_main.htm

 

There are none, those types dont seem to affect me :s just like in colour blind tests i can see both numbers thery are meant to be.

http://www.1timothy4-13.com/files/facts/optical_2.html

 

I want to say straight up, though this is a .gif file, it really isn't a movie. It's just really creepy. Just look at the center of the circle to show that it's not rotating.

 

i loved that one

theres a bunch in www.ebaumsworld.com

 

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/checkershadow.html

I really found this one trippy.. I learned in psych that we perceive things a certain way because we expect them to be that way.. I think that can be proven with the above link.

They look like two completely different shades >____<

 

whoa! thats so weird, my eyes hurt from all these stuffs

 

Ouchee... that stuff is awesome...

http://www.optillusions.com/

has a bunch...

 

These things are still pretty crazy!

Now for the weird part, why do you think our minds play tricks on us for these things?

 

In short: due to obscene amounts of information, our mind "tosses away" data to make the world a bit more understandable. Sometimes it "fills in the blanks" as well.

In great length: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/latinhib.html

So ultimately I'm not sure if you could call it a psychology issue. Perhaps a biology issue since it's more of an automatic response.

 

I can't believe this one, even with my face right at the screen... I was so determined to call the two different shades until I used photoshop, RGB was 107 for both.

- Shen

 

Yeah, ebaums has some good ones. Alot of um really bambooseled me. One of the illusions on ebaums I thought was a bit creepy. Made me say "Jebus." =P

I'm still reading the article that Neph gave the link to, but so far its pretty intresting. Somewhat confusing but intresting.

 

Cool read, thanks for the link. And, yes, I suppose if we did get a biology forum we could debate which forum this thread will go into. Although, since the image which is transmitted to the brain through neurons in the eye is deciphered in the brain, it would fall more under the category of psychology. Yet, the brain is part of biology too. Sigh! Do automatic bodily responses make a thing fall under biology and not psychology? Usually it's the brain and nervous system that cause these automatic reactions to happen.

I remember a strange thing that I was shown in psych, where the prof showed us a 3d render of a mask on a projector. And then he rotated the mask a bit and it turned out that it was inside out all along! None of us knew either. Like what Scott said, our mind tries to make sense out of things and changes how we perceive things so they seem normal - or in some cases it can't do this and we just see something weird, like the spinning snake circles.

 

I'm of the opinion that you can't hold an automatic response under psychology; humanity automatically looks for lines and faces in otherwise random things too. I'm of the opinion that things like inkblots are psychology, but these sort of illusions are not.

 

1. none
2. parallel

Ah the rest I can't see need to get rid of the secuirty