The coolest optical illusions! They will help your brain switch and get a little distracted, but be careful: as you know, an overdose of the drug can be dangerous!
Here is just an incredible collection of modern optical illusions-pictures that you will spend time with, enjoying the tricks and sensations given out by your brain.
Optical illusion- an impression about a visible object or phenomenon that does not correspond to reality, i.e. optical illusion. Translated from Latin, the word "illusion" means "mistake, delusion." This suggests that illusions have long been interpreted as some kind of malfunction in the visual system. Many researchers have studied the causes of their occurrence.
Be careful!
Some illusions can cause tearing, headache, and disorientation in space.
Pulsing poster
No matter where you focus your eyes on the picture, the picture does not stop moving for a second.
Kaleidoscope
An illusion of movement based on the work of Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a professor of psychology at the University (Ritsumeikan) in Tokyo, world-famous for his many illusions of movement.
Eye?
Shot from photographer Liamm, who was filming a foam shell, but soon realized that it was an eye looking at him.
four circles
Be careful! This optical illusion can cause a headache lasting up to two hours.
Ferris wheel
In which direction is the wheel spinning?
invisible chair
The optical effect, which gives the viewer a false impression of the location of the seat, is due to the original design of the chair, invented by the French studio Ibride.
Hypnosis
Stare without blinking at the middle of the image for 20 seconds, and then look at someone's face or just a wall.
flying cube
What looks like a real cube floating in the air is actually a drawing on a stick.
The birth of animation
User brusspup creates animated images by superimposing a grid of black parallel lines over the finished drawing. Before our eyes, static objects begin to move.
Look at the cross in the center
Peripheral vision turns beautiful faces into monsters.
Ordering squares
The four white lines seem to move randomly. But it is worth imposing images of squares on them, as everything becomes quite natural.
Volumetric Rubik's Cube
The drawing looks so realistic that there is no doubt that this is a real item. Twisting a sheet of paper, it becomes obvious that this is just a deliberately distorted image.
Same or different?
How can two cigarettes be different and the same size at the same time?
This is not animation
This is not an animated gif. This is an ordinary picture, all elements of which are absolutely motionless. It is your perception that is playing with you. Hold your gaze for a few seconds at one point, and the picture will stop moving.
Not tired? Then…
Brain explosion! Optical illusions on the verge of insanity!
Endless chocolate
If you cut a chocolate bar 5 by 5 and rearrange all the pieces in the order shown, then, out of nowhere, an extra chocolate piece will appear. Our readers have figured out the secret.
Black and white or color
If you stare at a dot in the center of a black and white image for 15 seconds, the picture takes on colors.
impossible elephant
Drawing by Roger Shepard.
color illusion
Keep looking at the cross and you will see how the purple spots turn green. And then they disappear altogether.
Black and white illusion
Stare at the four dots in the center of the picture for thirty seconds, then move your gaze up to the ceiling and blink. What did you see?
interior illusion
Checkerboard cells
Are cells A and B of the chessboard different colors? Color illusion published by MIT professor Edward H. Adelson in 1995.
And this incredible project designers David Stanfield and Al Boardman. They created web-spaces, where they invited all interested colleagues in creativity to take part in supporting the project, which was called "9 squares". As planned, each designer should present a 350px square with a 3 second animation using only 4 colors. Upon completion, the work is combined into 3 × 3 squares. To the surprise of David and El, their project has attracted many like-minded people, regularly replenishing the collection of "9 squares".
Incredible optical illusions!
We are used to taking the world around us for granted, so we do not notice how our brain deceives us. The reasons for such errors lie in the peculiarities of the physiology of vision, and in the psychology of perception.
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The Ebbinghaus Illusion (1902).
Which circle is larger? The one surrounded by small circles or the one surrounded by large ones?
They are identical
The man in the background and the dwarf in the foreground are the same height.
Muller-Lyer illusion (Franz Muller-Lyer, 1889) (transferring the properties of a whole figure to its separate parts)
Which of the horizontal lines is longer? They are identical.
Pareidolia
There are still creepy illusions - pareidolia.
This is an illusory perception of a real object. Unlike dual images, illusions of depth perception, pictures for pattern recognition, where images are created specifically to provoke the appearance of illusions, pareidolia occurs with the perception of the most ordinary objects. For example, when looking at a pattern of wallpaper or a carpet, cracks and spots on the ceiling, clouds, one can see changeable, fantastic landscapes, faces of people, unusual animals, etc. The basis of such illusory images are the details of the actual drawing. Pareidolia were first described by Kalbaum and Jaspers (Kahlbaum K., 1866; Jaspers K., 1913). Some pareidolic illusions arise from the perception of any well-known images. In this case, they can be observed simultaneously in many people.
Burning building of the World Trade Center (2001). Some see the face of the devil here
Another devil in the smoke
And here is a well-known face on Mars (NASA, 1976). This play of light and shadow has given rise to many ufological theories about ancient Martian civilizations. Late images of this region of Mars show no face.
Achromatic contrast
The circles are the same shade of gray.
The color at points A and B is the same: impossible to believe, but photoshop confirms
Look in the center at the black dot - the colored spots should disappear.
See the light gray diagonal stripes?
If you look closely at the dot in the center for several seconds, they will disappear. Look at the dot
After 30 seconds, the gray spot will begin to disappear.
Look without looking up at the cross. Did you see green spots? But there is nothing green here.
Changeling- a type of optical illusion in which the nature of the perceived object depends on the direction of view. One of these illusions is the "duck hare": the image can be interpreted both as an image of a duck and as an image of a hare.
skull illusion
Naked girl or drying stockings?
If Freud was right, then you will see not only a book here.
Take a closer look - somewhere in this picture there is a familiar face.
Look at the nose of the woman in the photo for 10 seconds, then look at something bright and blink - you will see a full color photo.
These cars look different in size... but in fact they are exactly the same.
This optical illusion works on a very simple principle - our brain determines the size of an object based on the distance to it. The third car is the furthest away, which is why it looks bigger.
Which of the orange circles is bigger?
In fact, they are exactly the same. The whole point is that when an object is surrounded by large objects, it appears smaller than it actually is.
Look at the yellow dot. Move closer to the screen and the pink circles will start spinning.
Believe it or not, squares A and B in this image are actually the same color.
The thing is that our brain automatically determines the color based on the surrounding shadows. Because square B is in the shadow of the green cylinder, our brain perceives it as a lighter shade of grey.
Without taking your eyes off the image, move closer to the screen and you will see that the light becomes brighter.
All dots in this image are actually white, but some appear black.
We are used to taking the world around us for granted, so we do not notice how our brain deceives its own masters.
The imperfection of our binocular vision, unconscious false judgments, psychological stereotypes and other distortions of world perception serve as a pretext for the emergence of optical illusions. There are a lot of them, but we tried to collect for you the most interesting, crazy and incredible of them.
Impossible figures
At one time, this genre of graphics was so widespread that it even got its own name - impossibilism. Each of these figures seems quite real on paper, but simply cannot exist in the physical world.Impossible Trident
The classic blevet is perhaps the brightest representative of optical drawings from the category of “impossible figures”. No matter how hard you try, you will not be able to determine where the middle prong originates.
Another striking example is the impossible Penrose triangle.
It is in the form of the so-called "endless staircase".
And also Roger Shepard's "impossible elephant".
Ames room
Issues of optical illusions interested Adelbert Ames Jr. from early childhood. After becoming an ophthalmologist, he did not stop his research on depth perception, which resulted in the famous Ames Room. 
How the Ames room works
In a nutshell, the effect of the Ames room can be conveyed as follows: it seems that two people are standing in the left and right corners of its back wall - a dwarf and a giant. Of course, this is an optical trick, and in fact these people are of quite ordinary height. In reality, the room has an elongated trapezoidal shape, but because of the false perspective, it seems to us rectangular. The left corner is farther away from the visitors' view than the right corner, and therefore the person standing there seems so small. 
Illusions of movement
This category of optical tricks is of most interest to psychologists. Most of them are based on the subtleties of color combinations, the brightness of objects and their repetition. All these tricks mislead our peripheral vision, as a result of which the perception mechanism goes astray, the retina captures the image intermittently, spasmodically, and the brain activates the areas of the cortex responsible for detecting movement.floating star
It's hard to believe that this picture is not an animated gif-format, but an ordinary optical illusion. The drawing was created by Japanese artist Kaya Nao in 2012. A pronounced illusion of movement is achieved due to the opposite direction of the patterns in the center and along the edges. 
There are quite a few such illusions of motion, that is, static images that appear to be in motion. For example, the famous spinning circle.
Or yellow arrows on a pink background: when you look closely, it seems that they are swaying back and forth.
Beware, this image may cause eye pain or dizziness in people with weak vestibular apparatus.
Honestly, this is a regular picture, not a gif! Psychedelic spirals seem to drag somewhere into the universe full of oddities and wonders.
Illusions-shifters
The most numerous and fun genre of drawings-illusions is based on a change in the direction of looking at a graphic object. The simplest upside-down drawings just need to be rotated 180 or 90 degrees. 
Two classic shifter illusions: nurse/old woman and beauty/ugly.
A more highly artistic picture with a catch - when rotated 90 degrees, the frog turns into a horse.
Other "double illusions" are more subtle.
Girl / old woman
One of the most popular dual images was published in 1915 in the cartoon magazine Puck. The caption to the drawing read: "My wife and mother-in-law." 
old people / mexicans
An elderly couple or guitar-singing Mexicans? Most see old people first, and only then do their eyebrows turn into a sombrero, and their eyes into faces. The authorship belongs to the Mexican artist Octavio Ocampo, who created many pictures-illusions of a similar nature. 
Lovers / Dolphins
Surprisingly, the interpretation of this psychological illusion depends on the age of the person. As a rule, children see dolphins frolicking in the water - their brain, not yet familiar with sexual relationships and their symbols, simply does not isolate two lovers in this composition. Older people, on the contrary, first see a couple, and only then dolphins. 
The list of such dual pictures is endless:
In the picture above, most people first see the face of an Indian, and only then look to the left and distinguish a silhouette in a fur coat. The image below is usually interpreted by everyone as a black cat, and only then does a mouse appear in its contours.
A very simple upside-down picture - something like this can be easily done with your own hands.
Illusions of color and contrast
Alas, the human eye is imperfect, and in our assessments of what we see (without noticing it ourselves) we often rely on the color environment and the brightness of the background of the object. This leads to very interesting optical illusions.gray squares
Optical illusions of colors are one of the most popular types of optical illusion. Yes, yes, squares A and B are painted in the same color. 
Such a trick is possible due to the peculiarities of how our brain works. A shadow without sharp borders falls on square B. Thanks to the darker "environment" and smooth shadow gradient, it appears to be significantly lighter than square A.
green spiral
There are only three colors in this photo: pink, orange and green. Don't believe? Here's what happens when you replace pink and orange with black. 
Is the dress white and gold or blue and black?
However, illusions based on the perception of color are not uncommon. Take, for example, the white and gold or black and blue dress that conquered the Internet in 2015. What color was this mysterious dress, and why did different people perceive it differently?The explanation for the dress phenomenon is very simple: as in the case of gray squares, it all depends on the imperfect chromatic adaptation of our organs of vision. As you know, the human retina consists of two types of receptors: rods and cones. Rods capture light better, while cones capture color. Each person has a different ratio of cones and rods, so the definition of the color and shape of an object is slightly different depending on the dominance of one or another type of receptor.
Those who saw the white-and-gold dress drew attention to the brightly lit background and decided that the dress was in the shade, which means that the white color should be darker than usual. If the dress seemed blue-black to you, then your eye first of all paid attention to the main color of the dress, which in this photo really has a blue tint. Then your brain judged that the golden hue was black, brightened due to the rays of the sun directed at the dress and the poor quality of the photo.
In fact, the dress was blue with black lace.
And here is another photo that baffled millions of users who could not decide if there was a wall in front of them or a lake.
Office Plankton presents a gallery of the best optical illusions you've ever seen. There are really very interesting specimens in our gallery, so you won't be bored.
rotation illusion
Visualization of Tusi's lemma
This is not a 3D image
What you see in the picture is not a 3D image, but the American city of Boston, if a giant was looking at it, the distance between the eyes of which would be about 200 meters. It would take an airplane to take this shot, but with 3D glasses on, you can see a tiny city that can fit in the palm of your hand.
Water flows from bottom to top
After watching the video, you will get the feeling that pouring water at the very bottom, water flows upwards under the influence of unknown forces. Written by Maurits Escher. This kind of art even has a name imp-art. The trick lies solely in the play of light and shadows (meaning in specially incorrectly placed shadows), which create such an amazing illusion that water is flowing from the bottom up.
Gray is white. We will prove it to you.
An illusion by Edward Adelson that breaks our brains by showing us that a white square is a gray square and vice versa. Here the illusion lies in the play of light, which for our eyes changes the perception of the subject.
Half glass...
3rd dimension
Movement gives our brain an idea of what an object looks like, what shape it is, and so on. The motion parallax effect makes us believe that a 2D image is a 3D image.
Aftereffect
If you look at a moving contrasting background for a long time, then an aftereffect is created if you look at some object. Check it out - watch the video, and then shift your gaze to any object or just look around your room.
Gene is watching you
The illusion of reverse perspective occurs when you look at a concave object, and expect to see a convex one, and creates a “lifelike effect”, as shown in the video.
Everything that we see around us is instantly analyzed and identified by the brain, which produces the finished result. Moreover, it does not always correspond to the surrounding reality. Our perception depends on lighting, angle of view, focus, play of color, shadows and image volume. Optical illusions are not a figment of the imagination, not a hallucination, but a very real thing that we perceive distorted for various reasons. The world around us is full of amazing and unknown, let's look into the magical land of extraordinary images.
natural phenomena
Since ancient times, people have observed unusual objects, and then talked about their miraculous disappearance. Remember the stories of travelers about oases in the middle of the desert, they are nearby, but it is impossible to reach them. Science has long figured out the nature of the most amazing illusions that are caused by physical processes. Get ready to meet them:
Since we have already mentioned this phenomenon, let's start our acquaintance with ghostly visions from them. Between two atmospheric layers with different temperatures and densities, a sharp refraction of light rays occurs. Hence the seas in the desert, and the "mirror walls", and ships sailing across the sky.
Northern and southern polar lights. An incredible sight, when light streams, painted in different colors, pierce the sky. This miracle is explained as follows: the Earth's magnetic field attracts particles thrown out by solar flares. Their collision with atmospheric gases causes unusually beautiful radiation.
Clear and clean Antarctic air and bright sunlight evoke "vision". Flickering in the distance or completely non-existent objects become voluminous and unusually real.
The shimmering air creates the effect of a wet road, and up close it is completely dry.
Glow in the form of rays and lightning. A striking example is the fires of St. Elmo. The spectacle is impressive, but the explanation is simple: the electric field ionizes air molecules, a blue or purple glow appears, which is especially beautiful in the dark.
All these wonderful phenomena can be observed in different parts of the world. Remember the rainbow, the tales of flickering lights in the water (Devils Paasselkail). Or look at the image of the sun "with ears" or a rarer optical illusion - several suns at the same time. All these are "games of nature", visual "tricks" that occur due to well-known physical processes.
If the examples described earlier are quite understandable, then chronomirages can be attributed to the most amazing optical illusions. Their nature has not been fully studied, and official science is still arguing how real this phenomenon is and what caused it. Chronomirage differs from the usual one in that it reproduces some historical event or a “possible future”. Castles, palaces, legendary figures suddenly appear right in the air. Such a spectacle is rare, but there are "special places" where you can often inadvertently encounter the past:
- Lisbon. Here we saw an ancient castle engulfed in flames.
- In the Chinese city of Penglai, many people saw a wonderful future: a metropolis suddenly appeared on the site of an ordinary provincial town with ultra-modern skyscrapers, cars and people.
- In the Yaroslavl region, on Lake Pleshcheyevo, you can often meet ancient Russian warriors.
Chronomirages were observed in Stockholm, Ireland, England, Russia and France. Some of them were photographed, others are confirmed only by eyewitness accounts, and sometimes quite large groups of people fell under the influence of visual deception. This means that hallucinations are out of the question, they suffer individually.
Saints, angels, ghosts and evil spirits
Stories about encounters with saints, ghosts, or "evil spirits" are far from always the fruit of fantasy or inflamed imagination. The most reliable way to understand whether to believe your eyes is to take a photo. Of course, there is a risk of "writing yourself crazy", because such visions are very short and last only a few seconds. But still, sometimes it is possible to fix some of the most amazing meetings with the other world:
Flying Dutchman. In the ranking of ghosts, this is the most famous mirage with its own long-standing legend. It was met by sailors back in the Middle Ages, and was mentioned in stories as a very real ship. But the ghost, apparently, has not yet completed its mission, and continues to plow the ocean.
Found by climbers. Highlands, rarefied air, fog and lighting features do their job: many saw the mountain ghost and described it in much the same way. Seeing ghosts is a fairly common occurrence.
In all nations and on any continent, one can find references to the appearance of the faces of saints in the air, of angels descending from heaven. Descriptions of such miracles are not uncommon, and numerous testimonies allow us to speak of real “optics games”.
Profession: Illusionist
It would be strange that man did not take advantage of the wonders of nature and the possibilities of optical illusion. Remember the famous Count Cagliostro and other famous hoaxers. Magicians and illusionists built their tricks on the laws of physics. You won’t surprise anyone with disappearing and appearing objects, a circus act with an assistant “cutting” and other tricks.
Knowledge of the laws of physics and the peculiarities of the perception of objects helped the great ones: Copperfield, Houdini, Geller, Kio, Akopyan. Sleight of hand and optical illusions work wonders together: flying through the air, suddenly disappearing in front of millions of spectators. Illusionists approach the development of each trick responsibly, taking into account the degree of illumination, the distance of the audience and other factors. But do not expose their secrets, let's believe in a miracle for a while, and imagine that Copperfield's flight is magic.
wonderful pictures
Visual perception is a special thing. Our eyes are "living" lenses that work according to all the laws of optics. Focusing and defocusing of the gaze allows you to see a three-dimensional picture in dots and patterns. Even a simple three-dimensional image is perceived by us sometimes very interesting:
Who is bigger. Two identical figures will be perceived differently if you make a frame in the form of an expanding tunnel.
The balls in the image are the same size
"Live" pictures. A moving square, a snake, a whirlpool, swaying arrows, "pulsating" figures - all this is visibility. It is based on the features of the perception of points, color, image volume.
The colors make the image feel like it is moving.
geometrical paradoxes. The impossible trident, the Penrose triangle, the endless staircase and other pictures can literally drive you crazy if you try to draw them without knowing optical laws.
Three cylindrical rods turn into two bars
Color perception. With the help of contrast, you can achieve amazing effects, look at the “multi-colored” cells, two trapeziums, the Mach illusion.
White lines in the image are strictly parallel
Volume. The image of three-dimensional objects is also the result of visual deception, we can say that their principles and foundations of 3D technologies are “berries from one field”, physical laws work perfectly, deceiving the brain. The most famous: a portrait of a man from coffee beans, paintings created using ordinary threads, the illusion of Gianni Sarcone. In the video, a spider drawn on plain paper comes to life.
The variety of such paradoxes is based solely on the scientific basis of visual perception. And it gives great scope for creativity and the creation of new masterpieces.
Around us
It would be strange that a person, having unraveled the secrets of optics, did not use them in everyday life. They were adopted by:
Artists. Double illusions allow you to fit 2 images at once (a frog and a horse) into one picture. Well-known is the "revived" painting by Van Gogh and the mysterious Mona Lisa, which looks at you wherever you stand. It is worth mentioning the three-dimensional picture of Leandro Erlich. And there are many such examples.
Designers. 3D interiors are something special! Do you want to have a crocodile at home? Invite Nikolai Arndt, he is a master of painting parquets. He can also organize an abyss with a bridge for you at home, walk to your health. To decorate the street, call Fintan Magi, he will depict an astronaut on the wall, so much so that you cannot distinguish it from the real one. There are also rugs with an optical pattern and 3D wallpapers. With this technology, you can really work wonders.
Cinema and cartoons. Naturally, where else can you most often find a three-dimensional image. There are many examples, everyone can remember their own.
Photo. The popularity of photography in the 21st century has reached its peak. And the possibilities of "visual deception" help to make incredible photos. Without any editing, you can combine a man and a fountain, shoot a “soaring” girl, find an image of a mythical “push-pull” animal with the heads of a cat and a dog, or a modern “centaur”. The authenticity of these photos will be confirmed by any examination, why photoshop, if there is such a powerful weapon!
The scope of these ordinary miracles is not limited, knowledge and imagination are all that is needed to create a new niche in the wonderful world of optical illusions.