We are used to trusting what can be seen, heard or touched, but it happens that the senses are failing us. Especially often it happens with someone from whom we do not expect a trick - with our eyesight. A false or distorted understanding of reality is called an illusion of visual perception , which can concern the depth, color or size of an object. Examples of such distortions are mass, with many of them we encounter every day. Let's try to explain to some of them.
Illusions of perception of size and shape
The first reason for the distorted assessment of the surrounding world is the imperfection of the structure of our eyes. The retina at the entry point of the optic nerve is devoid of photosensitive nerve endings, which forms the so-called blind spot. That is, some part of the image the brain completes independently, focusing on parts of the neighboring background. It also saves that the blind spots of both eyes do not fall on one point of the image.
The phenomenon of irradiation also often helps our eyes to be deceived. Everyone noticed that the white objects seem much larger than the black ones. It's no accident, when buying clothes, we try to dress up too large parts of the body in black. And in order to appear slimmer, we choose dresses with vertical dynamics. This is also related to the peculiarity of our perception - a square with horizontal lines will always appear below and wider than a square with vertical lines.
It is also confusing to the brain habit to evaluate the whole object, and not every part of it. That is why the arrow with divergent ends seems to us more than exactly the same, but with a classical ending. And we judge the size of the object, focusing on its surroundings. Therefore, the square surrounded by small circles, will seem to us more than that surrounded by large circles, although in reality both figures are the same.
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Illusions of perception of depth
Do you remember your surprise when you first saw voluminous drawings on the asphalt? You absolutely knew that the surface is flat, but the brain insistently pointed to the presence of depth in the figure. In short, in our deceit the skill of the artist is guilty, who skillfully plays with colors and perspective. Converging off-road lines, power lines, railways, which we often see, give rise to a perspective understanding that helps to make a flat image voluminous. Also, knowledge of color comes to the aid - dark tones will always look farther (deeper) than light shades.
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Illusions of color perception
A very important ability of our vision is the ability to distinguish colors, but this property can fail us. For example, when lighting conditions change, colors are perceived by us quite differently.
We tend to judge the color saturation of the brightness of the background or surrounding objects, so the same picture on a white background will look brighter than if it were placed on a black background. In addition, our eye tends to perceive the color of the observed object, depending on the background tone. For example, if a black circle is placed on a green background, then this circle will appear to us reddish, on a red background it will acquire a green tint.
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- On the first picture, pay attention to the flicker of different colors of points at the intersection of lines.
- In the second picture, the red color appears brighter against the black background.
- In the third picture, the width of the green table is equal to the length of the red, and the width of the red length is green.
Illusions of visual perception of movement
Surely, you noticed how the objects outside the window are perceived unequally by our eyes. Forest and bush in the background moves along with the train, slowly enough, but the flowers and grass, located close to us, move so fast that it is not always possible to distinguish the details. This phenomenon is called motor parallax.
Another known dynamic illusion is the autokinetic movement. Look for a few minutes at the luminous point in the dark room, and after a while you will seem that she began to move.
But the biggest visual illusion is the cinema. Thanks to the inertia of our view - the ability to see the subject for a while after its disappearance, creates the illusion of movement, rather than showing two frames flashing in different places. Consecutive and related changes are interpreted by our eyesight as a movement, which enables us to enjoy the achievements of cinematography.