While the phrasing might be a bit harsh, optical illusions indeed highlight the complexities and occasional quirks of the human brain's visual processing. Here are 10 optical illusions that demonstrate just that: 2.
The Café Wall Illusion: Rows of alternating light and dark bricks that create the illusion of sloping lines, even though they are parallel.
The Müller-Lyer Illusion: Lines with arrowheads at both ends that make one line appear longer than the other, even though they are the same length.
The Ponzo Illusion: Two identical lines appear different in length due to converging lines that create a sense of depth.
The Ames Room: A distorted room that makes people appear much larger or smaller than others when they switch positions within it, despite them being the same size.
The Floating/Flickering Grid Illusion: A grid of white squares on a black background where gray blobs appear to float at the intersections, disappearing when fixated upon.
The Zöllner Illusion: Parallel lines appear skewed or crooked due to intersecting diagonal lines.
The Necker Cube: A wireframe cube that seems to flip in orientation spontaneously, despite remaining unchanged.
The Rotating Snakes: Static images that give the illusion of movement, with different parts of the pattern appearing to rotate continuously.
The Ebbinghaus Illusion: Two identical circles surrounded by circles of varying sizes. The circle surrounded by smaller circles appears larger than the one surrounded by larger circles, even though they are the same size.
The Hermann Grid Illusion: A grid with black squares at the intersections. Gray patches appear at the white intersections when staring at a single point due to lateral inhibition in the visual system.
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