Why do optical illusions deceive our brain

Optical illusions are created at the expense of color, contrast, shape, size, pattern and perspective and deceive our brain. But how exactly does this happen? Why straight lines appear slanted, and the same intervals - different in length? Cover in this article.

Users familiar with optical illusions for thousands of years. Romans make 3D-mosaic to decorate the house, the Greeks used the term to build a beautiful Pantheon, and at least one figurine from the Paleolithic era stone depicts two different animals, which can be seen depending on the point view.

On the way from your eyes to the brain much can be lost. In most cases, the system works fine. Your eyes quickly and almost imperceptibly moving from side to side, bringing disparate brain images of what is happening. The brain also orders them, defines the context, putting puzzle pieces into something that makes sense.

For example, you are standing on the corner of the street, cars drive through the pedestrian crossing and traffic lights red. Pieces of information are added in conclusion: Now is not the time to cross the street. Most often, this works fine, but sometimes, despite the fact that your eyes send visual signals to the brain in an attempt to decipher them does

In particular, this often occurs when the cause included templates. They are necessary for our brain to process information faster with less energy. But these same patterns may mislead him.

As you can see in the image the illusion of a chessboard, the brain does not like change templates. When the small flecks change the pattern a single chess cells, the brain begins to interpret them as a large bulge in the center of the board.

Also, the brain often mistaken about the color. One and the same color can look different on different backgrounds. In the image below both eyes of a girl of the same color, but by changing the background one looks blue.

Next an optical illusion - the illusion wall café (Cafe Wall Illusion).

Researchers from the University of Bristol found that illusion in 1970 thanks to the mosaic wall in the cafe, which is why it got its name.

It seems that the gray line between the rows of black and white squares are angled, but in reality they are parallel to each other. Your brain, confused contrasting and closely spaced squares, sees the gray line as part of a mosaic, above or below the squares. As a result, created the illusion of a trapezoid.

Scientists suggest that the illusion is created by the joint action of the neural mechanisms at different levels: the retinal neurons and neurons in the visual cortex.

A similar mechanism of action and the illusion of arrows: the white lines are actually parallel, although not seem so. But here the brain confusing contrast of colors.

Optical illusion can be created and due to prospects, such as the illusion of a chessboard.

Due to the fact that the brain is familiar with the laws of perspective, it seems to you that the remote blue line is longer than the green in the foreground. In fact they are the same length.

The next kind of optical illusion - pictures, where you can find two images.

In this picture, in the void between the colors hidden face of Napoleon, his second wife, Marie Louise of Austria and their son. These images are used for development of attention. We find the person?

Here is another picture of a double image, which is called "My wife and toscha".

It was invented by Eli William Hill (William Ely Hill) in 1915 and published in the American satirical magazine Puck.

The brain can also complement the color of the picture, as is the case with the illusion of a fox.

If you have some time look at the left part of the picture with a fox, and then look will translate to the right, it will turn from white to reddish. Scientists still do not know what accounts for such illusions.

Here is another illusion of the color. Look at the woman's face for 30 seconds, and then turn the view on the white wall.

In contrast to the illusion with a fox, in this case the brain inverts the colors - you can see on a white background, which acts as a movie screen, a projection face.

And here is a clear demonstration of how our brain processes visual information. In this confusing mosaic of people you easily recognize Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The brain creates an image of the pieces of information received. Without this ability, we could not drive a car or to safely cross the road.

Now try to read the text in the image below.

When you are just learning to read, you read every letter, but then the brain remembers the whole words, and at the time of reading you recognize them as a single image, sliding a look at the first and last letters.

Last Illusion - Two colored cube. Orange cube is inside or outside?

Depending on your point of view, orange cube can be in blue or float outside. This illusion is due to your acts of depth perception and interpretation of the images it depends on what your brain thinks right.

As you can see, despite the fact that our brain copes with everyday tasks, to deceive him, enough to upset the existing template, use contrasting colors or the desired perspective.

What do you think, how often do the brain is fooled so in real life?