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Optical illusions & the art of seeing

Explore optical illusions, impossible objects and illusion art with pictures, viewing instructions and explanations. Follow the science and history behind each example, from classic visual puzzles to fractals and camouflage in nature and human design.

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The collection

Impossible wooden cube — A real wooden construction looks like an impossible cube from one view.

Impossible wooden cube

Wmccallie

A real wooden construction looks like an impossible cube from one view.

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Gray patches interrupting alternating black and white horizontal stripes.

White’s illusion

Michael White

Equal gray bars look different inside a striped pattern.

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Three cylindrical prongs apparently connected to two rectangular supports.

Impossible trident

Original creator uncertain; reported by D. H. Schuster

Three prongs quietly become two supports.

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Three frames of a man articulating speech, illustrating visual mouth movements used in the McGurk effect.

McGurk Effect

Harry McGurk (1936 -1998) and John MacDonald

Although the sound remains the same throughout the video, when watching different lip movements, you should experience an illusory change in the sound.

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The Hall of Perspectives at Villa Farnesina, with painted columns framing landscape views.

Walls That Become a Loggia

Baldassarre Peruzzi

A room’s walls appear to open through columns into the landscape beyond.

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A wooden bowl on white illustrating the tactile aftereffect article.

Tactile Aftereffect

I.M. Vogels Vogels, A. M., Kappers and J.J. Koenderink J. J. (1996)

When you press your hands to the flat surface you should experience the flat surface as curved for a few seconds.

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Identical gray patches displayed on contrasting light and dark backgrounds.

Simultaneous contrast

Longstanding phenomenon; studied by Michel Eugène Chevreul

One gray looks light; the same gray looks dark.

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Diagonal moving stripes seen through an elongated rectangular aperture.Moving image

Barber pole

J. P. Guilford; investigated by Hans Wallach

Diagonal stripes move sideways but seem to travel upward.

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A person stands beside a pavement painting that appears to open into a vast blue crevasse.

The Crevasse

Edgar Müller (1968 –), a German illusionist street painter

You should have the visual experience of a woman seeming to stand on top of a crevasse. However, although the woman is real, the crevasse is just a cleverly constructed 2D drawing on the…

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Two perspective drawings of tables with congruent parallelogram-shaped tops.

Shepard’s tables

Roger N. Shepard

Two different-looking tabletops share the same outline.

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An upright line meeting the midpoint of an equal-length horizontal line.

Horizontal–vertical illusion

Nineteenth-century researchers including J. J. Oppel

The upright line seems longer than its equal horizontal partner.

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A concave mask photographed or animated to demonstrate apparent convexity.

Hollow-face illusion

Longstanding demonstration; studied by Richard Gregory & others

A hollow face can look like a face turned toward you.

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Apollonian Gasket — Tangent circles fill gaps with smaller and smaller circles.

Apollonian Gasket

Classical circle geometry; later mathematical development

Tangent circles fill gaps with smaller and smaller circles.

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An animated red-and-green ring with striped surfaces whose apparent depth can reverse.Moving image

Ambiguous Ring

Donald E. Simanek

You should experience a sense of perceptual confusion as you note the paradoxical nature of the depicted ring.

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Enlarged image from the selected gallery entry