The human brain …

1. The human brain … … tricks us whenever it can!

2. If something‘s rotating – go home, you need a break! *g*

3. Optical Illusions and Visual PhenomenaWant to confuse your eyes and brain a bit? Yes? Then you might want to have a look at the following pics ..

4. It ...

5. … doesn‘t move!

6. Are these lines straight?

7. Spiral or circle?

8. Concentrate on the cross in the middle, after a while you will notice that this moving purple dot will turn green! Look at the cross a bit longer and you‘ll notice that all dots except the green one will disappear.

9. Stare at the center dot, the colors eventually disappear!

10. Color word illusion The Stroop color word illusion demonstrates what happens when two different perceptual processes conflict. In each of the following trials you will see words printed on the screen. Your task is to name out loud the color of the ink that the word is printed. The word will cycle every half second - keep naming the color ink of the printed word until you get an idea for how easy or hard it is.

11. This wasn't so hard, was it? The next trials will go at the exact same speed as well.

12. Harder, isn't it? The automatic process of reading is interfering with the process of identifying/naming the color. Neat, huh?

13. Read this sign

14. Is there more blue or more red? Neither – they are the same!

15. The Magic Cube Look at the cube. What side is the front? Is the front as shown on the cube on the left side? Or is the front as shown on the cube on the right side?

16. Stare at the middle of picture with black squares 15-30 seconds. Are those really dots that appear at the corners of the squares? What happens if you focus on a dot?

17. Now look at the middle of the picture with the white squares. Do you see dots again? What color are they?

18. How many black circles can you see?

19. Do you see a vase or a face in the figure below? This type of picture was first illustrated by psychologist Edgar Rubin in 1915. Notice that it is very difficult to see both the faces and the vase at the same time. This may happen because we tend to focus our attention on only one part of the image...either the faces or the vase.

20. Can you see ten faces in the tree?

21. Can you see the face?

22. Do you see the baby?

23. Do you see the kissing couple?

24. Can you tell the difference between a frog and a horse?

25. Do you see a head or an Eskimo?

26. What color arrows do you see?

27. Read the line across and then down: A-B-C or 12-13-14?

28. What word do you see?

29. What do you see? • In black you can read the word GOOD, in white the word EVIL (inside each black letter is a white letter). It's all very physiological too, because it visualize the concept that good can't exist without evil (or the absence of good is evil). 

30. You may not see it at first, but the white spaces read the word optical, the blue landscape reads the word illusion. Look again! Can you see why this painting is called an optical illusion?

31. What do you see here? • This one is quite tricky! The word TEACH reflects as LEARN.

32. What do you see? • You probably read the word ME in brown, but....... when you look through ME you will see YOU!

33. Count every ' F ' in the following text:FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS... (SEE BELOW) HOW MANY ? wrong there are SIX!!!!

34. READ IT AGAIN ! Try to find the 6 F's. FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE SULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTI FIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS... The Human Brain has difficulty processing the Fs in the word “OF”

35. Poggendorff Illusion The Poggendorff Illusion was created by Johann Poggendorff in 1860. Are the lines behind the rectangles straight or not? It looks as if it does not go straight across, but does it?

36. Which line continues on the right?

37. Is this really a square?

38. Is this really a circle?

39. Hmmm...is the center circle on the right the same size as the center circle on the left? This illusion shows that our brains judge size by comparing objects to things in the surroundings.

40. This inverted "T" has two lines....are they the same length?

41. Subjective Contours Filling the gap. Your brain tries to fill in these pictures with images that really are not there. Do you see a: Square? Triangle?

42. Subjective Contours Rectangle?

43. Subjective Contours

44. The Blind Spot One of the most dramatic experiments to perform is the demonstration of the blind spot. The blind spot is the area on the retina in the eye without receptors that respond to light. Therefore an image that falls on this region will NOT be seen. It is in this region that the optic nerve exits the eye on its way to the brain.

45. The Blind Spot Draw the following image on a 6 inch wide piece of paper – the dot & cross on either edge of the paper.

46. The Blind Spot Close your right eye. Hold the image about 20 inches away. With your left eye, look at the +. Slowly bring the image closer while looking at the +. At a certain distance, the dot will disappear from sight...this is when the dot falls on the blind spot of your retina. Reverse the process. Close your left eye and look at the dot with your right eye. Move the image slowly closer to you and the + should disappear.

47. Don’t Jump To Conclusions! What does this say? JGF GBFAM JS CQQD Do you think it says “ICE CREAM IS GOOD” ? …….LOOK AGAIN

48. Afterimages Can you put the fish in the bowl? Try this. Stare at the yellow stripe in the middle of the fish in the picture below for about 15-30 sec. Then move your gaze to the fish bowl. You should see a fish of a different color in the bowl. It helps if you keep your head still and blink once or twice after you move your eyes to the bowl. The afterimage will last about five seconds.

49. Stare at the four dots in the center of the image for 60 seconds and then look at a blank space of wall. You should see an interesting afterglow.

50. Impossible objects! Is this a triangle?