Can you make your brain not see this circle illusion?(syfy.com)
syfy.com
Can you make your brain not see this circle illusion?
http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/can-you-make-your-brain-not-see-this-circle-illusion
75 comments
>If you were to say that there are technically no spirals in that image because they're not contiguous, then you could equally say that there are technically no circles either, only an arrangement of square boxes that is strongly suggestive of a circle.
There are circles though. The grey concentric rings.
If you removed them, you'd see the black and white pattern spirals towards the center.
There are circles though. The grey concentric rings.
If you removed them, you'd see the black and white pattern spirals towards the center.
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The black patches form the implication of a spiral
Indeed, it reminded me of the triangle illusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_contours
The brain is very good at "filling in", so what it's doing in this case is perceiving the image as a masked-off spiral.
That also brings to mind, what would the "content-aware fill" tool in newer versions of Photoshop do to the image...?
Indeed, it reminded me of the triangle illusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_contours
The brain is very good at "filling in", so what it's doing in this case is perceiving the image as a masked-off spiral.
That also brings to mind, what would the "content-aware fill" tool in newer versions of Photoshop do to the image...?
This is something I've been tempted to blog about. As you and my sibling poster point out, the illusion is actually essentially composed of the things they claim aren't there. The same goes for the Kanizsa triangle, Fraser's illusion and many others. The simplest description of each image matches what our eyes see, but the creators say "Ah, but I created it this other way, so your eyes are wrong".
For me the illusion here is no trick. Looking at it I have considerable difficulty not seeing a single unbroken line spiraling out from the center to the perimeter. In reality there are huge disconnects, it is concentric rings and not a continuous line at all. Even when I force myself to see the circles they look like they are all trying to float away from each other in opposite directions. Almost poetic, really.
The spirals are actually there, partially concealed by plain circles, so seeing spirals is not really incorrect. Your visual system is good at seeing concealed things. That's why I disagree with it being classified as an illusion. Though not as much as with the Kanizsa triangle.
"The spirals are actually there" - the unbroken spiral is not there, and it is an illusion of one, not multiple. At least to me. I guess if you want to be particular, the circles are broken by the pixels on my monitor, but at 4k that isn't perceptible. I guess if one gets far enough away from the monitor that one can no longer resolve the space between the circles it could be said that the spiral is actually there.
These illusions must be bugs in our image perception hardware that evolution hasn't sorted out for some reason.
It would be interesting to know if some people don't get fooled by them, and if so how they're different in other ways.
Also, do other species react like we do? How do you design an experiment for that?
Finally, I wonder if this can be used practically. Some kind of camouflage maybe?
It would be interesting to know if some people don't get fooled by them, and if so how they're different in other ways.
Also, do other species react like we do? How do you design an experiment for that?
Finally, I wonder if this can be used practically. Some kind of camouflage maybe?
Perception can be tested in many other species with the kind of experiments that B.F. Skinner was famous for: condition them to respond a distint way in the presence of particular stimuli and then show them different things and see how they react. With enough carefully chosen training and observations it is possible to get a good sense of what they are perceiving. I don't have any links handy, but I think there was quite a bit of this type of thing done at one point.
> Also, do other species react like we do?
Cats seem to see the squirming snakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcXXQ6GCUb8
Cats seem to see the squirming snakes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcXXQ6GCUb8
Cats play like that with blank sheets of paper on soft surfaces, too, due to the crinkling noises, so the evidence is insufficient.
The reason is, of course, that there's nothing in nature that would trigger this false perception. And even if there were, it's difficult to come up with a scenario where that would cause enough selection pressure to fix it (given that it's probably caused by complex interplay of traits that are in other contexts extremely adaptive).
Many bugs are actually features. By removing this 'bug', what would we no longer be able to perceive or perceive quickly?
I read that certain optical illusions are not experienced as strongly by native, non-city-dwelling populations. It was hypothesized that this was due to the relative absence of 90-degree angles and "carpentered" features in their environments [1]. Looking it up again now to refresh my memory, I see that this explanation is contentious and there may be other reasons for the variation.
The Wikipedia page also mentions papers about pigeons [2] and a parrot [3] reportedly being susceptible to the illusion. I'm pretty sure the birds used in those experiments live in carpentered environments that are heavy on the 90-degree angles. A Smithsonian magazine article on the same topic says that "a computer trained to mimic the perceptions of the human eye was also susceptible" [4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCller-Lyer_illusion#Vari...
[2] http://sci-hub.ac/10.1037/0735-7036.120.3.252
[3] http://cavlab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/cavangh2008proc...
[4] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/are-optical-illusio...
The Wikipedia page also mentions papers about pigeons [2] and a parrot [3] reportedly being susceptible to the illusion. I'm pretty sure the birds used in those experiments live in carpentered environments that are heavy on the 90-degree angles. A Smithsonian magazine article on the same topic says that "a computer trained to mimic the perceptions of the human eye was also susceptible" [4].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCller-Lyer_illusion#Vari...
[2] http://sci-hub.ac/10.1037/0735-7036.120.3.252
[3] http://cavlab.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/cavangh2008proc...
[4] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/are-optical-illusio...
Not necessarily bugs. These are limitations which are bugs or not, depending on requirements.
Camouflage does exploit limitations in our vision, but surely limitations, and therefore hiding strategies, will exist at some level, no matter what.
Overall, these seem like very minor limitations compared to others, like our propensity for near-sightedness. And in despite those much more significant limitations, it seems like human vision has been a massive success.
Camouflage does exploit limitations in our vision, but surely limitations, and therefore hiding strategies, will exist at some level, no matter what.
Overall, these seem like very minor limitations compared to others, like our propensity for near-sightedness. And in despite those much more significant limitations, it seems like human vision has been a massive success.
Oh my god.
I normally find optical illusions interesting and fun. Here it's like the fun guy at the party has had too much to drink and is now obnoxious and a bit nauseating.
I normally find optical illusions interesting and fun. Here it's like the fun guy at the party has had too much to drink and is now obnoxious and a bit nauseating.
This is pretty much the basis of contouring makeup
Focus on the gray, and let your mind put it as the foreground, and circles, let them be a low frequency background. It may be your best chance to not see the illusion.
I also think that as you become more trained in graphics (and illusions in general?) you become more adept at stripping the component that makes up the illusion.
Also the challenge that comes with "Warning!! You cannot unsee this!!!" probably helps too.
Also the challenge that comes with "Warning!! You cannot unsee this!!!" probably helps too.
Worked for me on the squared circle but took concentration on the spiral. It changed as I looked at it but not like before. Different ways of focusing on it made it go static vs moving.
What made you recommend that?
What made you recommend that?
Negative space is easy to see when you focus on it. In these examples, the negative space is flat color, so it's not affected by the illusion.
Good advice.
You feel it, it's almost there... and no. It's gone. The spiral won.
So close !
You feel it, it's almost there... and no. It's gone. The spiral won.
So close !
It could be said that his explanations of the illusions are wrong: there is a spiral in the final image, it's just masked out by concentric circle outlines. Particularly toward the center of the image where the resolution is so low that it all blurs together anyway it is hard to argue that is not a genuine (if blurry) spiral.
When learning to parse the concentric circles with eighteen patches of mirror-spiraling dot sequences, my thought was: "Look at the gray areas, duh. Just like life. They're what's actually there, the rest is a distraction designed to deceive your natural perception." > woah.jpg
I had no problem seeing circles and not a spiral. If I stare at it, it sort of looks like a tunnel deep into the ground.
Just kind of look at the whole thing and then the details, alternate your attention back and forth and you can see circles and not a spiral.
Just kind of look at the whole thing and then the details, alternate your attention back and forth and you can see circles and not a spiral.
This reminds me of visualizations of neural network layers in visual tasks.
Reminds me of the camouflage on some spiders. I wonder if their markings invoke that illusion?
I thought it looked like snakeskin. And then wondered about evolutionary adaptation, i.e. making it harder for predators to accurately see where the snake is.
I love this stuff.
Was reading about a dinosaur discovery that allowed them to project colouration, turns out the bottom was brighter than the top, an adaptation prey has so that their shadow is the same brightness as their top half, deer have the same adaptation, evolution is amazing!
Was reading about a dinosaur discovery that allowed them to project colouration, turns out the bottom was brighter than the top, an adaptation prey has so that their shadow is the same brightness as their top half, deer have the same adaptation, evolution is amazing!
The illusions are cool and study worthy, but the "you will never believe this!!!" tone of the articles is major turnoff.
Well, it's Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, and it's kind of his style.
I like his style, but I knew him when we were in elementary school together back in the early 70's (he was into telescopes and stuff even then), so I cut him some slack.
I like his style, but I knew him when we were in elementary school together back in the early 70's (he was into telescopes and stuff even then), so I cut him some slack.
Yeah. Despite the style, he's strictly no nonsense (after all, the original point of his blog and website was to refute bad astronomy in popular media.
The five parallel lines farther down the page were giving me a headache. Ugh
It's like generative adversarial samples for biological neural nets. I wonder is someone could weaponize this so if would cause lasting dizziness and disorientation after a prolonged exposure.
This illusion lasts months: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollough_effect
I can attest it lasts at least a few hours... I like/don't like having my brain "hacked" like that.
Similar device was used in the sci-fi novel Snow Crash. It appeared like a black and white image of static but in fact contained a subliminal message which tapped into some subconscious low-level cognitive functions of the brain. Just by looking at it, it reprogrammed the victim's brain and made them into a mindless zombie.
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The rounded corners rectangle looking one gave me the idea of using these for parts of the UI.. good thing I'm not a UI or web designer I guess!
The illusion creator's homepage is an old favorite of mine.
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html
The illusions discussed in the article are the Cyanophyceae under the shape illusions category.
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html
The illusions discussed in the article are the Cyanophyceae under the shape illusions category.
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/ACSwamp2010.jpg got me. But there's a catch: it only works when you scroll. So you have to go to http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html and scroll down till you see it. It looks bizarre.
Wow, and it doesn't even require color. There's a grayscale illusion which behaves similarly -- maybe even a bit stronger! -- at:
http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/mesh-driftillusion01...
http://www.psy.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/mesh-driftillusion01...
Works for me without scrolling.
Yeah, that set is a great one. I've noticed the scrolling effect too, it definitely intensifies the movement. I suspect the cause of the movement is the saccades shifting where it is in the visual field slightly, and scrolling is a much bigger shift.
Bobbing my head up and down also works.
He's also very friendly on his Facebook account. He's got quite a few fans there.
I noticed that the rotating snake illusion only seems to occur when my eyes are actually moving; if I focus on a specific spot for long enough, they seem to all stop spinning.
Really neat stuff.
Really neat stuff.
Are there examples of these patterns in use in real world logos or, e.g., website designs? Not designed to make people dizzy, but used to give an illusion of animation maybe?
This effect is kind of similar to what makes subpixel font rendering look horrible when the wrong LCD subpixel order is selected. Or why text looks jaggy on pentile displays, especially while scrolling.
Focussing on the negative gray color in between circles gives it away. Still requires extreme focus to figure out the spiral.
Illusions like this always remind me of failure modes of image classifiers - where an AI thinks a sunflower is a panda or whatever, because it's never seen a sunflower before.
That is, presumably the illusion works because it depicts something we've never needed to distinguish before, in such a way that it shares salient features with something more familiar (in this case, oddly-textured concentric rings and normally textured spirals, respectively). Or am I spouting nonsense?
That is, presumably the illusion works because it depicts something we've never needed to distinguish before, in such a way that it shares salient features with something more familiar (in this case, oddly-textured concentric rings and normally textured spirals, respectively). Or am I spouting nonsense?
I've always thought of it this way:
Over millions and millions of years of evolution, many mammals (including us) adapted our vision centers to quickly process large chunks of environmental information by developing a series of beneficial hard-wired processing networks in the visual cortex. These neural pathways allow us to do things like subconsciously notice small movement or even judge distances fairly accurately without parallax. Most of the time it works pretty well; I mean, it kept us as a species alive up to today. However, illusions like this "exploit" the "visual hacks" our brain uses (that allow us to process such large amounts of visual data so quickly) by creating objects that don't (or can't) exist in nature. Our brains are fairly picky about things like depth-of-field and textural shading and oftentimes their limits can be demonstrated by simply playing with a few colors and changing a few angles.
Over millions and millions of years of evolution, many mammals (including us) adapted our vision centers to quickly process large chunks of environmental information by developing a series of beneficial hard-wired processing networks in the visual cortex. These neural pathways allow us to do things like subconsciously notice small movement or even judge distances fairly accurately without parallax. Most of the time it works pretty well; I mean, it kept us as a species alive up to today. However, illusions like this "exploit" the "visual hacks" our brain uses (that allow us to process such large amounts of visual data so quickly) by creating objects that don't (or can't) exist in nature. Our brains are fairly picky about things like depth-of-field and textural shading and oftentimes their limits can be demonstrated by simply playing with a few colors and changing a few angles.
Cats that grow up in an environment without any horizontal lines are unable to see horizontal lines [1]. This indicates that it might not be as much "evolution made me recognize these shapes" as it is "I learned to recognize these shapes since I see them often", which is more inline with OP's explanation. Of course evolution plays into what you are able to learn to recognize in the first place.
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-food/201404/the-c...
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brain-food/201404/the-c...
I wonder why evolution has not exploited this more.
It has, think about natural camouflage like zebras. It short circuits the predators ability to pick out individual herd members.
Minor correction: Predators like lions have no problem distinguishing individual members of a herd. The stripes pattern messes with the way blood-sucking, disease-spreading flies (such as horse flies or tsetse flies) see the world.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kbzwpv/the-reason...
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kbzwpv/the-reason...
It probably has, it's just that after it has been exploited it becomes a default part of everythings sensory kit.
If you like this sort of thing, and haven't heard of the McGurk Effect before, take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0 .
Wow. I can close my eyes and picture the two different speech patterns and hear different results. Bizarre.
If you cover one eye and look at the image of two concentric circles, it gives a slightly exaggerated illustration of how I see text with both eyes open due to misalignment. That's why I hate two-space indentation with a passion. Saving this for the next tabs vs. spaces debate.
There are two words I think explain why this effect is so strong in humans; survival, snake.
Out of interest, is there anyone for whom these illusions don't work?
raises hand I've been doing 3D modeling and photo manipulation for over a decade. I learned to dismantle these illusions, focusing more on the "how" than the "wow". I've dabbled in making illusions. http://imgur.com/J3kSB1c
Except they are spirals. The black patches form the implication of a spiral - this is where your visual system picks out the spiral from.
If you were to say that there are technically no spirals in that image because they're not contiguous, then you could equally say that there are technically no circles either, only an arrangement of square boxes that is strongly suggestive of a circle.
Either way, it's a very powerful illusion.