40 amazing optical illusions that have baffled half the world

In recent years the Internet has given us the photo of the dress (yes, that which was at the same time blue and white and white), a mysterious hidden leg, and this confusing soil design.

If you have an appetite to see more examples, Insider has compiled a mixture of classical optical illusions, disconcerting viral photos and amazing effects that will cause you to be confusion and also serve to explain how our brains process and interpret things like color, peripheral vision,The size of objects and other issues.

An important note: Explanations for many of the images have been included, so it happens with care down if you do not want to swallow a spoiler ahead of time that spoils your effect.

To be able to see the animal hidden in this illusion you have to shake your head.

Medicckinson/Twitter

Michelle Dickinson, Nanotechnology Engineer, published this optical illusion on his Twitter in January 2019.

The hidden animal is a cat, and you don't have to shake your head to see it.

Medicckinson/Twitter

If you move away from the original illusion or see a very small version of the image, the cat should look more easily.

The video of this hand exchange trick confused everyone on the Internet

Kay_dera/Twitter

Chidera Kemakolam, which on Twitter is @kay_dera, tweeted a brief video making a small trick at the end of August 2018.

Begins by holding his left hand towards the camera, with his palm open towards the target.Then, wrap your fingers from your right hand around the palm of your left hand.Then push both hands towards the camera.At that time his right hand seems to be released and appears, forming a fist, in front of his left hand in seconds.

Magic? Not really...

The trick key is to make a fist quickly with the front hand.

Kay_dera/Twitter and Lucy Yang/Insider

Your hands never exchange positions.

The amorphous form at the bottom of this painting has confused people for centuries.

Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)

Entitled "The Ambassadors" This picture was finished in 1533 by German artist Hans Holbein the young.It is currently on exhibition at the National Museum of London, the United Kingdom.

When you look at the front paint, you will see what seems to be a large and deformed object at the bottom.But when you look at her from a particular angle, the stain becomes a human skull before your eyes.

According to researcher Phillip Kent, this picture is one of the most famous examples of Anamorphosis, an irregular way that appears in its "true" form when seen in an "unconventional" way.

What color are the circles in this photo?

Novickprof/Twitter

This colorful image went viral in mid -July 2018 after its creator, the professor of the University of Texas, the DR.David Novick, shared it via Twitter.

Despite what you can see with the naked eye, it turns out that all circles are actually the same color."However, the differences are subtle and depend on the size of the image when seen," wrote the DR.Novick on Twitter.

THE IMAGE OF DR.Novick, which he calls "confetti", is an example of a classic optical illusion known as an illusion of Munker.According to the Danish professor Michael Bach, Munker's illusion reveals how much other surrounding colors influence.

At first glance, this photo seems to represent an inclined man and hugging a woman who is sitting in a chair in her office.

Boom_likean808/twitter

In May 2018, a Twitter user named CJ Fentroy posted an image in which two coworkers were seen laughing.It also seems that the boy in the photo is wearing a light blue shirt, white tight jeans and black heels, while the woman wears a checkered shirt in magenta tones.

It is a funny photo, but otherwise without incident, with which you could make scroll if it were not for the title that Fentroy put."At first, I thought it was I who had the heels," he wrote.

If you look at the photo again, you will begin to question what legs you are really seeing.

Boom_likean808/twitter and Lucy Yang/Insider

After an inspection more closely, it is difficult to know if the boy in the photo is inclined, with his head placed on that of the girl, or if the woman is inclined, with the head resting on the left's left shoulder.

But, if you look good, everything indicates that the woman in the photo is the one who carries heels while the man is sitting.

Depending on how you look at her, this illusion looks like Ben Stiller or Beyoncé.

Courtesy of Chris Frady

This optical illusion scared people after the presenter of "The Late Late Show", James Corden, will tweet a photo in May 2018.

Originally created by Chris Frady (Reddit user: Shikaca), this image was first viral in 2015 and is the result of the combination of two photos of Zoolander and Beyoncé.

At first glance, the illusion looks like a blurred photo of Ben Stiller Zoolander from his 2001 film of the same name.But if you narrowed their eyes, Stiller's face seems to disappear;Instead, you see the beyoncé face.His face also appears more clearly, compared to Stiller's face, when you look at a smaller version of the image or observe it from afar.

The photo of Zoolander-Beyoncé is a variation of a simple optical illusion known as "hybrid image".

CMGLEE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (Public Domain)

A famous example of a hybrid image overlaps with the faces of Albert Einstein and Marilyn Monroe, as seen in the image above.The main scientific researcher of the MITIVIA Artificial and Informatics Intelligence Laboratory.

According to Olivia, who has created and used hybrid images in his investigation for decades, our eyes see "resolutions with high spatial frequencies (clear lines) and low (blurred shapes)".Closely, we focus on functions with high frequencies, such as wrinkles or spots.But from a distance, the clear details become less visible and instead register characteristics with low frequencies, such as the shape of the mouth or nose.

Hybrid images work by combining the high frequencies of one photo with the low frequencies of another.The result is an image that can be perceived in two different ways, depending on the distance from which you look.

If you get in this image for about 30 seconds, it will disappear completely.

Primaryeyecare1/Twitter

In April 2018, an oculist in practices in Horsham, Pennsylvania (United States), tweeted an optical illusion that left some speechless people.The image disappears after approximately 30 seconds when you look at a single fixed point.

What is the secret?Well, this amazing effect is actually a variation of a famous optical illusion called Troxler's fading circle.Discovered in 1804 by Ignaz Troxler, a Swiss philosopher and physical, the Troxler effect illustrates the efficiency of the human brain.

In simpler terms, your sensory neurons tend to filter the information that is constant: the stimuli that your brain considers non -essential and non -threatening.As Brandon Specktor of Live Science explained, this ability to quickly adapt to stimuli allows your brain to focus on things that are really important.

When you force your eyes to focus a point, as you do with Troxler's style illusions, your brain does not receive new information to process.At this point, the stimuli in your peripheral vision acquire the nature of the surrounding environment (in this case, a white background) as your brain "complete" the information that does not consider important to process.

The tattoo of this person makes it look like a giant hole in the arm.

Redhouse000/Reddit

The photo of this tattoo became Viralen February 2018, after it was published by the Reddit R/Damnthatsinteresting user.It is not clear who is the original artist behind the tattoo.

As Jacob Shamsian explained to Insider, the tattoo design creates an illusion of infinite depth, thanks to the placement of "progressively smaller rectangles" inside the spiral.

What color is this sideboard?

Agamiegamer/Reddit

In December 2017 2017, Reddit User Agamiegamer published a photo of this sideboard."What color do you see: pink and white or blue and gray?" He titled in his post.

People immediately reacted: many said seeing the arosa and white sideboard, while others said they see it blue and gray, and a few claimed to see it "between light blue and green and pink" or "lima and green and gray".

Finally, the Reddit user revealed that the sideboard was actually painted blue and gray.Some showed their skepticism, so another user introduced himself to the debate to offer the following explanation in the face of confusion: the "redd" lighting of the photo makes the "unsaturated" gray parts of the comfortable look more pink.In the same way the light also causes the blue parts of the dresser to seem white.

At first glance it looks like a normal and current newspaper.

Courtesy of Felipe Salazar and Karen Castañeda

Don't believe everything you think you see.

But look more closely and you will realize that it really has a "3D" kitchen.

Courtesy of Felipe Salazar and Karen Castañeda

The creative director Felipe Salazar and graphic designer Karen Castañeda recently converted a newspaper into an advertisement for the Hypercentro Corona supermarket.The two artists manipulated the newspaper's text to look like a "3D kitchen", using their design to add the illusion of depth.Actually, paper is completely flat.

Although you may see a lot of circles spinning in a whirlpool, this image is completely still.

CMGLEE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

This image is inspired by the famous illusion "rotating snakes," created by the Japanese psychologist and professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka in 2003.

The two are an example of peripheral illusion, in which we perceive fixed images as moving images.Interestingly, when you stare at a part of the photo without moving or blinking your eyes, that part stops "turning" (while circles in your peripheral vision continue to "move").

You can read about the science behind this phenomenon in Business Insider.

Is this cat going up or lowering the stairs?

9GAG

The innocent photo of this cat went viral in 2015 while people wondered if the animal climbed or lowered the stretch of stairs.

Internet users used everything from architecture to biology, to defend their answers to the question.

Insider Megan Willett, for example, analyzed why the cat "definitely" is lowering the stairs.And after reading his explanation in Business Insider, I'm totally convinced that the cat is going down.

This photo of two people hugging generated enormous confusion on the Internet last year

Imgur

The post became viral after the Reddit user, Blood_reaper shared it on the network, under the title, "this hurts me to the brain...."

People could not find out who was starting the hug, since the man in the photo seems to have two pairs of legs.

If you look at man's shorts, you will solve it.

Imgur

Man's shorts are black on the side and white in the middle, so they get confused with the white pants that the woman carries.

Squares A and B on this chess board are the same color.

Wikimedia Commons

This optical illusion was first published in 1995 by Edward H.Adelson, a vision science professor at MIT.

The effect has to do with the way our brains interpret color and shadow.

Wikimedia Commons

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— OS X Helper Sat Dec 20 11:52:06 +0000 2014

As Slate explained, "your brain is always comparing things".The square A is surrounded by lighter squares, which makes it look darker, while the square B is surrounded by darker squares, making it look clearer.The shadow also "puts your perception" and "amplifies the effect", summarizes Slate.

If you are not convinced yet, open the image in Photoshop and check it yourself.

MIT also has a great tool that explains the science behind this phenomenon.

Is this pink and white and gray green shoe?

Dolansmalik/Twitter

Earl this month, this humble shoe went viral after some people began to discuss whether it was pink, white or bluish green.It was like the second part of the 2015 dress debate, in which the Internet could not agree on the true color of a tight dress.

The shoe is actually pink and white in real life.

DSW

Like the photo of El dress, the original photo of the shoe was taken with little light with a bluish dye, said Susanna Heller de Insider.The perception of shoe color depends on your individual sensitivity to image lighting.

Is this blue and white and white dress?

Swiked/Tumblr

In 2015, the debate on the true color of this dress generated hundreds of comments on the network, articles, and inlcluso articles of scientific dissemination.People saw it as black and blue or white and gold, and the two parties were convinced that they were right.

As you will probably know, the dress turned out to be black and blue.

Screenshot / Roman Originals

There are innumerable explanations that you can read online about why people see the dress of two completely different colors.

In simple terms, everything has to do with how your brain processes color.Basically, the light bounces in objects and reaches your eyes in "a mixture of wavelengths", which your brain interprets as color.

As Pascal Wallisch of Slate explained, "this mixture depends on two things: the color of the object and the color of the light source.[...] To achieve what specialized scientists call 'color constancy', the brain calculates color corrections.Take note of the light that lights up and tries to discover how the color of an object could be affecting ".

Since the photo of the dress was taken with little light with a bluish dye, your brain can see the shadow dress (and the color is corrected in relation to the dress is white and golden) or in "a good amount of lighting"(And perceive the dress as blue and black).

Here is another example of color constancy: these strawberries are not red.

Akiyoshi Kitaoka/Twitter

Like the "rotating snakes," this illusion was also created by Japanese psychologist and professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka, who studied visual perception at the University of Ritsumeikan.Professor Kitaoka shared the image on Twitter at the beginning of the year.

The red color has been completely eliminated from the image, but people still see red strawberries.Why?

Well, as Jacob Shamsian from Insider explained, the brain "knows that the color of an object is more useful than the color of a light source" to determine the color of an object.Therefore, "he is trained to ignore the information" he receives about the color of a light source.As your mind recognizes that the objects in this photo are strawberries, and knows that strawberries tend to be red, correct the color of the gray and green pixels of the image so that they are red.

Are you still confused?Read the complete explanation of Shamsian's here.

There are a total of 12 black points in this image, but you can't see them all at once.

Perception

First published in the year 2000 in the academic magazine "Perception" by Jacques Ninio and Kent A.Stevens, this illusion went viral when Professor Kitaoka shared it on Facebook and play designer Will Kerslake published her on Twitter.

While you should be able to see any point that you look directly, the points in their peripheral vision seem to appear and disappear.Why? Bueno, en términos simples, nuestra visión periférica es mala.

You can read about science behind this phenomenon.

Can you find the cat in this photo?

Waterhauler/Reddit

Originally published by Reddit Waterhauler user, this photo went viral in 2016.

Reddit users had difficulty finding the cinnamon cat, which mixed with cut wooden batteries.

Waterhauler/Reddit and Lucy Yang/Insider

"This took me too long," said a Reddit user."I thought it was just a knot in the tree bark in the background".

This wavy floor is actually completely flat.

Courtesy of Duncan Cook/Casa Ceramica

This floor design of the ceramic house tile company, based in the United Kingdom, became viral in Reddit.

Located at the entrance of one of the company's exhibition rooms in Manchester, the illusion stops people when running through the hallway.

As if that were not sufficiently, the illusion only works when you face the entrance of the exhibition room."Ambollasto" on the ground disappears when you look at it from the opposite perspective.

Similarly, this carpet seems to be full of giant holes.

WHS_CARPET/twitter

In September, the Twitter account @whs_carpet brought us this amazing photo.While the floor is completely smooth, the carpet designer created large spaces between certain lines to add depth and generate a crater effect, explained Jacob Shamsian from Insider.

The horizontal gray lines in this image are inclined, but in reality they are completely parallel.

Fibonacci/Wikimedia Commons

This famous image was named as the illusion of the coffee wall by psychologist Richard Gregory in the 1970s.It is a classical optical illusion that dates back to the end of the 19th century.You can learn about science behind this phenomenon in Gregory's 1979 article.

Here is another example of the "illusion of the coffee wall".

Victoria Skye

This version of the classical optical illusion won the second place in the "Contest for the Best Illustration of the Year" of the Neural correlate Society in 2017.

When the image is blurred, you can see that the lines are perfectly parallel and perpendicular to each other.

Victoria Skye

The creator of the illusion, Victoria Skye, blurred the image to prove that the lines are straight.

Can you see something unusual in this painting by Leonardo da Vinci?

Seth Wenig/AP

"Salvator Mundi" is a painting of Jesus Christ that was lost, rediscovered and identified as a work of Da Vinci in 2011.

However, some historians question the authenticity of recovered painting given a particular detail, The Guardian wrote in October.

The crystal sphere that Christ supports does not distort the light as it should in real life.

Seth Wenig/AP and Stuart Mack/Shuttersock

"The solid glass or glass, either with a orb or lens, produces magnified, and inverted images," explains the writer Walter Isaacson in his biography of Da Vinci."On the other hand, Leonardo painted the orb as if it were a hollow glass bubble that does not refract or distort the light that passes through it.".

It is an especially strange choice given the careful and scientifically precise description of the artist of light in his works.That said, Isaacson, and many others, still believe that painting is authentic.Perhaps, some have argued, Da Vinci intentionally ignored physics to highlight the divine powers of Christ.

There is a hidden phone somewhere in this image.

Jeya May Cruz Estigoy/Facebook

A Facebook user first shared this photo in 2016, and its publication has been shared thousands of times.

Thanks to its floral case, the phone combines perfectly with this stamped carpet.

Jeya May Cruz Estigoy/Facebook and Lucy Yang/Insider

You saw it?

Neon blue lines make it look like there is a light blue circle in the center of this image, but the background is white.

Wikimedia Commons

Known as the propagation of neon color, this classical optical illusion was documented for the first time in 1971 and was then rediscovered by H.F.Van Tuijl in 1975.While the exact causes of this phenomenon are not yet known, you can read several theories here.

This photo of Kendall Jenner, Kylie Jenner and Hailey Baldwin went viral earlier this year, but not for the reason you might think.

Instyle Magazine/Instagram

When Instyle shared this photo of the three women who came together after the Golden Globes, the people quickly pointed out that Kendall's left leg seemed to miss.

Kendall's left leg was hidden under the folds of her dress.

Instyle Magazine/Instagram

If you look closely at Kendall's dress, you can see the contour of his left leg against the orange fabric.As Jacob Shamsian, from Insider, explained, the model points her left knee to her right side and turns her body to look directly to the camera.

Despite what you can think, gray rectangles under columns A and B are exactly the same color.

Zhengyi4411/Wikimedia Commons

Discovered in 1979 by the Australian psychologist Michael White, this famous effect is known as White's illusion.Since then, researchers have proposed several theories to explain the cause of this illusion.You can read more about this here.

Is this girl underwater or not?

maskari/imgur

The year The Dress also gave us this viral photo of a girl who seems to be under the water at first sight.However, it also seems that it is jumping in the water, which makes no sense.

It is definitely not underwater: here is the test.

maskari/imgur and Jacob Shamsian/Insider

While the filtered light and air bubbles make it look like the girl is underwater, some clues show that she is not.

As Jacob Shamsian points out, from Insider, his hair is dry, his ponytail does not float in the water and the "air bubbles" are actually drops of water.

The two orange circles in this image are exactly the same size.

Wikimedia Commons

Discovered by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, this optical iluion was popularized by British psychologist Edward B.Titchener in 1901.

Thus known as Ebbinghaus's illusion, or Titchener circles, the effect illustrates how our brain "uses the context to determine the size of objects."Since the blue circles that surround the orange circle on the left are so large, the orange circle seems smaller compared.Extrapola that with the tiny blue circles to the right, and the orange circle seems relatively bigger.

In case you are more interested, this explanation made by The Guardian breaks it down even more.

Do these legs seem fat or bright?

Leonardhoespams/Instagram

An art student named Hunter AsciaSe shared this photo on Instagram in October 2016.He went viral when people began to discuss whether Culverhouse's legs were covered with oil or not.

It turned out that the legs were completely dry."[I had] a little white paint in my brush and put random lines on my legs," Culverhouse told Insider.While the effect was not intentionally.

The red lines in this image seem to be bent slightly outward.

Fibonacci/Wikimedia Commons

The lines are actually completely straight.This classical optical illusion is called the Hengo's illusion, discovered by German psychology Ewald Hern in 1861.

Is that how it works.

In 2016, another photo of a "hidden" leg revolutionized all the Internet.

JR0D7771/REDDIT

The Reddit user, JR0D7771, published this photo in December last year under the title "Find the girl's legs".

People discovered it.

JR0D7771/REDDIT and Jacob Shamsian/Insider

Jacob Shamsian De Insider discovered it last year.The woman in the middle, outlined in blue, is tilting her torso to her left and her head to her right, so it is difficult to know what leg torque are from her.

To do the most confusing things, the two women on the left carry black jeans.The second woman on the left has a completely hidden leg behind the legs of the other women.If you look closely, you can see small part of your other leg out.

Half of these forms seems that they are dyed by light orange contours, but it is an illusion.

Robert p.O'Shea/Wikimedia Commons

Known as an illusion of watercolor, this effect occurs when a white area is surrounded by a thin line and bright colors that is surrounded by a thin and darker edge.

La ilusión fue descubierta independientemente por el psicólogo italiano Baingio Pinna en 1987 y por Jack Broerse and Robert p.O'Shea in 1995.

Scientific American analyzes science behind this phenomenon.

Can you see something unusual in this apparently normal photo?

What047/Imgur

This image went viral in Imgur, after a user named What047 he posted and the title, "I had an eternity to find what was wrong here..."

All faces at the bottom of the image have been photoshopeadas to be the same man.

What047/Imgur

Women in the foreground of the photo are a false track.If you look closely at the bottom of the photo, you will discover that everyone has exactly the same head.

The blue diagonal line seems longer than that on the right, but it really has the same length.

Wikimedia Commons

Here is the scientific explanation of this effect, known as Sander's illusion or the parallelogram of Sander.

Half of the ways you see in this image only exist in the mirror of the image

The Illusion Contest/YouTube

Created by Professor of Meiji Kokichi Sugihara, this illusion was named the "best illusion of the year" in 2016 by the Neural correlate society.

It is called "ambiguous cylinder illusion" and you can see how it works on YouTube.If you are still confused, you can read Insider's breakdown '.

What about this photo?

Arron Bevin/Facebook

This apparently normal photo of a wall went viral, after Arron Bevin, a resident in the United Kingdom, shared it on Facebook last year.

There is a cigar hidden in the photo, fitted between the bricks.

Arron Bevin/Facebook

You could see it?

The train track to the left looks bigger than the right...

Insider

This version of this classic optical illusion became viral last year when the BBC presented.

...But both tracks are exactly the same size.

Insider

Known as Jastrow's illusion, there are many different theories about how this effect is created.

Are this holes or sand dunes?

Luca Parmitano/Twitter

The astronaut of the European Space Agency, Luca Parmitano, made this photo of some sand dunes in 2013.

But why do the dunes in their image seem craters?

If you look upside down, the illusion disappears.

Luca Parmitano/Twitter

Basically, "your brain thought that the sun was in the position of 1:00", projecting shadows from the upper right. Sin embargo, el sol en realidad estaba proyectando sombras desde la parte superior izquierda, tal y como explicó Jacob Shamsian de Insider.