From shrinking circles to distorted roads: The mind-boggling optical illusions crowned the best visual tricks in the world
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You might think that when it comes to optical illusions, that you've seen them all.
But a contest celebrating the ingenuity and creativity of the world's best illusion research community has revealed its top three new visual tricks and how they fool your brain.
The winner of the Illusion of the Year contest is an animated take on an old classic called the Ebbinghaus illusion, which tries to convince viewers that all the circles are growing and shrinking.
Don't believe your eyes! The winner of the Illusion of the Year contest is an animated take on an old classic called the Ebbinghaus, which tries to convince viewers that the central circle is growing and shrinking. It was created by Christopher Blair, Gideon Caplovitz, and Ryan Mruczek of the University of Nevada Reno
WINNER: THE DYNAMIC EBBINGHAUS ILLUSION
The animated illusion plays with how our brains gauge an object's size based on the objects that surround it.
A central circle, which stays the same size, appears to change size when it is surrounded by a set of circles that repeatedly expand and shrink.
The effect is particularly strong if you look away from the central circle or move your eyes – at least twice as effective as the classic, static Ebbinghaus illusion, the animation's creators said.
The original illusion, which is also known as Titchener circles, was discovered by German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus at the end of the 19th century but was popularised in a textbook about experimental psychology written by Edward B. Tichener in 1901.
Research suggests that the relative size of perception is what makes the illusion work, including the distance of the surrounding circles from the central circle and the completeness of the annulus.
Regardless of relative size, if the surrounding circles are closer to the central circle, the central circle appears larger and if the surrounding circles are far away, the central circle appears smaller.
The Ebbinghaus illusion has played a role in the debate over the existence of separate pathways in the brain for perception and action.
It has been argued that the Ebbinghaus illusion distorts perception of size, but not action, proven by a study where people had to 'grasp' the central circle and the scaling of their grip was unaffected by the perceived size distortion.
The Neural Correlate Society's annual contest saw entrants from across the world submitting their best optical illusions.
A panel of judges picked the top 10 and then attendees of the competitions at St Pete Beach in Florida decided the winners.
The overall winner was the 'Dynamic Ebbinghaus' by researchers at the University of Nevada Reno, which plays with how our brains gauge an object's size based on the objects that surround it.
A central circle, which stays the same size, appears to change size when it is surrounded by a set of circles that repeatedly expand and shrink.
The effect is particularly strong if you look away from the central circle or move your eyes – at least twice as effective as the classic, static Ebbinghaus illusion which has been popular for over a century, the researchers said.
An international team from the University of Leuven in Belgium, the University of California, San Diego and Radboud University Nijmegen, in the Netherlands took second place for their colourful illusions.
A single coloured image can seemingly transform into several different colour patterns, depending on the position of black outlines that are presented on top of the image.
'The shape of a surface depends more on changes of luminance [a measure of light intensity] in the visual scene than on colours themselves,' the team explained.
Road trippy: Scientists from Rice University, Houston in Texas took third place with a black-and-white illusion of roads which appear to bend differently depending on where they are placed. Kimberley Orsten and James Pomerantz came up with the visual trickery
'By presenting black outlines on top of coloured images, the whole area between outlines is seen as having one single colour.
'Instead of seeing the actual colours presented at each location, our brain prefers to see one homogenous colour, as surfaces in real life are usually also perceived with one single colour.'
Scientists from Rice University, Houston in Texas took third place with a black-and-white illusion of roads that appear to bend differently depending on where they are placed.
Colourful confusion: The reason why the colours seem to change because of the positioning of black lines is that our brain prefers to see one homogenous colour instead of the actual colours in precise locations, as surfaces in real life are usually perceived in one single colour
Images that are physically the same usually look the same, but in this illusion, two images that are different look the same – called metamers – and two images that are identical look different – called anti-metamers.
'Our main illusion mixes the two: 'It shows three images, two of which match with a third one mismatching.
'Viewers see one image as odd, but it's one of the two identical images they see as different, an illusion we call false pop out,' they explained.
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