Do you trust what you see with your own eyes? Then this experiment could raise doubts. What do you see in the gray area of this picture?
When you see angular and wavy lines, you are like most people. In fact, however, all of the lines on the graph are wavy. A look into the black and white corners of the picture confirms this.
The researcher Kohske Takahashi from Japan calls the phenomenon curvature blindness, which he discovered in an experiment. The psychologist is not describing a disease – but an illusory effect caused by the structure of this image.
How does this happen?
The angular appearing lines consist of gray and black lines – the color reinforces the appearance of straight lines.
With the curvy-looking lines, the valleys are accentuated – this makes them look softer. If you change the height of the lines, the effect disappears again. The illusion only appears in a certain size range of the waves.
Researchers assume that our visual perception is pre-structured and hierarchical. Takahashi suspects in his research report that the perception of corners in the visual system is fundamentally more dominant than the perception of curves.
In an interview with the British Telegraph, the Japanese researcher explains that the phenomenon could be part of an evolutionary process:
“We are surrounded by artificial products that have many more corners than a natural environment – so is our visual environment.”
“This visual phenomenon does not cause any problems in our everyday life – otherwise someone else would have discovered this illusion much earlier.”
So curvature blindness is harmless and pretty common. And it shows us: How we perceive our surroundings has changed again and again. The landscapes and things that surround us have a major influence on it.
Optical Illusion: Do You Also Have Curvature Blindness?
See in the video: Do you also suffer from curvature blindness? Find out in this experiment.