Optical Illusion: See the Rays? This is how our brain tricks us

Watch the video: Novel optical illusion tricks our brain – can you see the bright rays?

Look at the center of the graphic. Do you see that light lines are now radiating out from the center? This is a newly discovered optical illusion. The brain connects certain points in the network so that we see bright rays. Dubbed the “Sparkling Halo,” the illusion was designed by artist Michael Karlovich in 2019. For his company logo, he arranged several heptagons together to create a kind of mesh.

“When I first saw my illusion, I immediately felt like I was seeing an effect I had never seen before. I was pleasantly surprised, but ultimately puzzled as to how this effect came about.” Michael Karlovich, vs. Live Science

So Karlovich, who has a neuroscientific background, teamed up with psychologist and data scientist Pascal Wallisch to get to the bottom of the optical illusion. They have now published the result in a specialist journal.

They found that rotating the graphic or adding more weaves amplified the effect. The color of the graphic also affects the strength of the rays.

“The most important thing is that there is a strong contrast between the colors in the background and the graphics. The higher the contrast, the stronger the rays.” Michael Karlovich vs. Live Science

It is true that optical illusions, in which the brain is fooled into thinking things, are nothing completely new. However, this species is only known in lattice patterns. Like the so-called Hermann Lattice Illusion, where black dots appear on top of every white intersection when viewed.

Karlovich sees potential for further research in his “Sparkling Radiance Halo”. After all, optical illusions can be used to find out how our brain perceives and reconstructs the world.

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