The top optical illusions of 2021

These are the winners of the Top Optical Illusions of the Year contest for 2021.  

First place.

Second place (which I personally thought was the best).

Third place.

Here is a link to the Top Ten finalists.

What optical illusions prove is that the human mind is not a blank slate.  It is hard-wired to process information in certain ways.

Our visual information is received by light of different wave lengths falling on receptors (“rods” and “cones”) on the back surface of the eye.  But our brains process that information, and we see the world in three dimensions.  Because we do not perceive the world directly, it is possible to fool the brain.

What this means is that there are certain things that we see that our mental programming makes difficult or impossible to see.

Hat tip to kottke.org.

Illusion, reality and perception

Stefan Pabst, painter of 3-D optical illusions

Stefan Pabst of Hamburg, Germany, is a master of painting 3-D optical illusions, which I never cease to find fascinating  Here are some examples.

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The art of the optical illusion

Optical Illusions With Beach Sand

Optical Illusions With Sidewalk Chalk

Hat tip to Avedon Carol

Why would somebody do this to themselves?

I find these images disturbing but fascinating.

Optical illusions that fool the brain

What we see is when we look at something is not “sense data”.  It is not the pattern of photons of different wave lengths falling on the rods and cones of our eyes.  Something in our brains that is the equivalent of image processing software translates this raw data into an image that has meaning.

As my friend Bill Hickok said, that is why we can look at cartoons and see an image rather than just lines on a surface.  And that is why it is possible to fool the brain with optical illusions like the one above.

Hat tip to kottke.org.

Optical illusions on the highway

Karanvir Singh Sangha, a student in Moga, India, posted some astonishing photos on his Karansangha’s Blog, of semi-trailers on European highways that are painted to look like what they’re not.

I don’t know what I’d think if I were driving down the road and saw one of these coming in the opposite direction.

Look at the photos to see what I mean.