Spinning Silhouette Illusion

TLM showed me this today, which I used as a basis for my post over at TRintuition. Somehow this has been around the net for a long time and I had never seen it until today. Still pretty cool...

You're supposed to see the figure spinning one way, then try to get it to spin the other way. Using the shadow underneath the figure makes this easier, and eventually you will be able to do it, trust me.

Spinnys Illusion

I came across this somewhere last night (lost the URL). Don't get too sucked in though....Daisuke's debut is at 2pm EST.

Losing Your "Frame" of Reference

I'm not sure what's more disturbing, finding yourself transfixed on the hypnotic spin of the frames, or occasionally focusing accidentally on the head of the guy holding it.

Spanish Castle Illusion, Customized

I found this on Slashdot....very cool. It's a customized version of the Spanish Castle Illusion (the image below is from our recent trip to Las Vegas) which I made at http://www.myopticalillusion.com/.


Directions: Remove your mouse from the image above. Focus on the black dot in middle of the image for twenty seconds. Keep focus on the dot while you move your mouse back over the image, and the image will appear to be in color. What's cool is that once you do move your eyes away from the dot, you see the picture for what it is: a black a white image.

So, how does it work?

This illusion forces your brain to see color in a black and white photo. It works by first saturating your visual memory with shade and line data, which occurs when you stare at the first picture for more than ten seconds or so. Upon flipping to the second picture, the spectral opposite of the original color data is imposed on the grey lines and shading of the photo.

If the illusions works, it will immediately begin to fade once you move your eyes. This is because a saccade, or a quick lateral eye movement, will effectively "clear" the visual memory buffer with the assumption that the eye is seeking a new pattern to focus on. Even though the visual memory buffer clears with a slight glance in any direction, you will still see a slight fading of illusory effect as the neurochemical saturation in your visual cortex fades.

That explanation was taken from an article at tripzine.com, which looks to be a site devoted to the study of all things scientifically psychedelic, so take it with a grain of salt (or whatever else floats your boat, I guess).

Ill-usions

I've always been interested and entertained by how our brain works, or more specifically how we use it to percieve things. There are of course physical pieces to the puzzle (eyes, ears, etc), but there are also the important ingredients of previous experience and memory. What we expect to see or hear sometimes (most of the time) influences what we think we do see or hear. The perennial examples of how to play on our perception are undoubtedly optical illusions.

Firstly, please check this out. This illusion is an interesting take on some older ideas. We've seen images that play on color before, but few that throw in actual, and not perceived, animation. The effect, in this case, is that of disappearing dots, and I do not doubt that it revolves around color theory and (I think) persistence of vision.


Here's another color-related favorite of mine. The brain here makes it difficult to ignore the words we are reading. I find it indicative of our evolved dependence on the written word. Think you can do it? Try moving quickly by the words; that seems to help.

Lastly, I'll throw out this one, one of my favorite examples of percieved animation: