28 Jan Online Optical Illusions
Some of the most amazing and spectacular visual illusions are those that originate from the brain itself. The brain is a super powerful and highly complicated piece of hardware which is responsible for taking cues from the senses in order to interpret the outside world. At times the brain, when taking its cue from the eyes, can lead us to believe we are seeing something different from what’s actually true – this is called an optical illusion and optical artists like Dali and Escher have exploited these optical glitches beautifully in their works.
Optical illusions have proved time and again that the old saying “seeing is believing” is not entirely correct because the brain does have a tendency to misinterpret the cues coming in from the eyes and as a result, some visual illusions can be so convincing that people often mistake it for trickery. There is an array of explanations as to why these phenomena occur – some of them being very straight forward and others intricate and complicated. The fact of the matter is that the explanations given by experts vary from case to case and in some of the more advanced optical illusions, there would either be a general uncertainty among experts or the experts would disagree altogether.
The online world has made it possible for everyone to experience the wonder of optical illusions without making too much of an effort. One of the greatest optical illusions is the Spinning Girl Illusion which seems to be spinning both clock-wise and anti-clock-wise at the same time. A person who predominantly uses her right brain will see the girl spinning clock-wise whereas someone who is more of a left brain thinker will see the girl spin anti-clock-wise. “Right brain” people are the artists, the philosophers and the creative geniuses. “Left brain” people are more logical, conceptual and pragmatic. People normally tend to believe that optical illusions have no practical value but optical illusions such are the “spinning girl” can reveal important information about ourselves and how we normally tend to think. How does the “spinning girl” seem to be moving both ways? The answer: the image of the girl is not spinning at all. It’s a 2-D image and it’s merely moving back and forth. But since our brains are not built to register 2-D representations of the world, it assumes that the image of the spinning girl is a 3-D representation by picking up as many clues as possible from the image itself – in the case wherin there are insufficient clues, the brain uses its own patterns to fill in the details and come to a conclusion about which direction the girl is spinning.
There are a plethora of such optical illusions available online which can not only amaze and astonish but can also aid in developing self awareness.
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