What is an Optical Illusion? Optics 4 Kids. Try looking up a few more illusions, and the explanations of how they work. There are many more illusions, and more explanations of how they fool us. Third, as we discussed previously, the perception of color and brightness may make two objects that are the same color and shade appear to be two different shades, as in the red square example from before. As such, the lines are really the same size. However, our minds forget that this picture is not really three-dimensional-it is only two dimensional. If this is true, the yellow line at the top is further away, and thus must be larger than the one at the bottom. In the Ponzo illusion, the lines at the top of the picture appear further away than they are at the bottom of the picture. It can also explain the Kanizsa triangle, in which the mind perceives triangles by filling in lines within the empty space.Ī second explanation of optical illusion is depth and motion perception. Gestalt organization can explain many illusions, including the Duck-Rabbit and the Rubin Vase illusions: our minds perceive the whole, but switch back and forth between the duck and the rabbit, or the vase and the faces. This is called Gestalt organization (ref). Why do our minds fool us this way? There are several explanations as to why optical illusions exist.įirst, perceptual organization: our minds are constantly trying to make sense of the world around us, and to do this they must organize incoming information into a meaningful whole.

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