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Brain mapping
World of
World of
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
e all have seen various optical or visual the sky. Or it looks like water on the high-
W illusions over time.Optical illusions can be way when driving in the sunshine. These
are both optical illusions- the moon
fascinating, but do we really know how these
optical illusions actually work? Our eyes are
may be dry as a bone!
fooling us, or our eyes are perceiving reality? doesn’t really change size, and the road
In order to see, our eyes must focus light Other illusions happen because of a
on its retina, convert the light into electrical certain combination of colors and shapes,
impulses, and send those impulses to brain changes in background, because our eyes
to be interpreted. When the electrical get tired.
impulses arrive in the visual cortex of the
brain, the brain “reads” them and So there are three main types of
interprets them into an image of color and visual or optical illusions :-
light. It then flips the image (the light
gets projected on our retina upside down) - Literal Optical Illusions
and fills in for the blind spot if necessary. - Physiological Optical Illusions
- Cognitive Illusions
All this happens almost instantaneously,
allowing us to read a book or enjoy a 1.Literal Optical Illusions
beautiful sunset. Generally the process
works flawlessly, but sometimes the color, These illusions are created when our
light, or pattern of an object can “trick” the eyes perceive an image and our mind fills
brain into interpreting the image in gaps that don’t actually exist creating an
incorrectly, so we think we see something image that’s different from the object that
differently from how it really is. This is an makes them, or focuses on specific areas of
optical illusion. the image resulting in us “seeing” some-
Types of optical illusions thing that isn’t actually there.
Some optical illusions happen naturally: This also occurs when our brain creates
like moon looks much bigger when it’s images of faces in the clouds, or in every-
close to the horizon than when it is high in day objects. Ex-Elephant Legs
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