Any of you remember our ill-fated optical illusion Friday column? Lack of interest and a dwindling supply of decent illusions killed that, but every now and then we come across another one we wish we’d posted back then. The above is the work of three scientists at Keio University in Japan. And here’s how it works: look at the cross in the middle. All the dots looks like they’re wriggling around in random patterns, right? Wrong. Turns out they’re all in straight line trajectories, allegedly without colliding. You can convince yourself that this is at least partially true by following a random dot, rather than focusing on the cross. As for the claim that they’re not colliding, we don’t have the patience to confirm or debunk, but if true, we’re pretty impressed. If only cars could do that at intersections, traffic would be a thing of the past.
[ Research Paper ] VIA [ Sploid ]
The above optical illusion is in the form of a GIF. Click the image to see it animate, and then blink really fast. You’ll see Mandalas appear all over the place.
Mandalas, incidentally, are shapes of particular spiritual importance in Hindu and Buddhism. Yes, Wikipedia is the Internet citizen’s friend.
VIA [ BoingBoing ]
When you’re walking up close to these creations by Aakash Nihalani, they probably don’t seem all that impressive. Only some paper tape, color and maybe, maybe some cardboard.
Prescriptive makes all the difference. The angle and timing of taking a picture makes these works look like the best and most creative optical illusions ...
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By David Ponce
After an absence of a few weeks, here’s the optical illusion column again. That picture above? Four circles. No spiral.
Yeah.
In other news, we’re thinking of starting another column altogether to replace this one and we’re taking requests. Anyone?
By David Ponce
Whenever awards are given from criteria that aren’t quantitative, it’s pretty easy to question their validity. The above illusion won the Best Illusion of The Year 2007 as sponsored by the Neural Correlate Society, and while it’s interesting, perhaps 2007 was just a slow year. Still, this is what was said:
These images of the Leaning Tower are actually identical, but the tower on the right looks more lopsided because the human visual system treats the two images as one scene. Our brains have learned that two tall objects in our view will usually rise at the same angle but converge toward the top—think of standing at the base of neighboring skyscrapers. Because these towers are parallel, they do not converge, so the visual system thinks they must be rising at different angles.
By David Ponce
These optical illusions were discovered at Harvard, and demonstrate a phenomenon they’re calling silencing:
Play the movie while looking at the small white speck in the center of the ring. At first, the ring is motionless and it’s easy to tell that the dots are changing color. When the ring begins to rotate, the dots suddenly appear to stop changing. But in reality they are changing the entire time. Take a look.
SILENCING demonstrates the tight coupling of motion and object appearance. Simply by changing the retinotopic coordinates—moving the object or the eyes—it is possible to silence awareness of visual change, causing objects that had once been obviously dynamic to suddenly appear static.
By David Ponce
Well the above is pretty self explanatory, just look at it and you should see it pulsating somewhat. Click on it for a larger version and stronger effect.
We’re not sure what’s causing the illusion, but suspect it has something to do with your eyes’ microsaccades, the small, jerk-like, involuntary eye movements we all experience but usually don’t notice.