How Optical Illusions Trick Our Brains

Optical illusions can be mind-blowing and it’s interesting how difficult it can be for us to figure them out or rather see through them. A good example of an optical illusion is the image below. This image is known as a Scintillating Grid Illusion.

A quick glance at the glance at this grid, you will see that some black dots appear to twinkle or glow (scintillate) in the intersections of white lines as your eyes make small, rapid movements. This effect is only possible when your eyeball is moving slightly while scanning the image.

The grid is said to induce an effect known as Lateral Inhibition.

How Does Happen?

When you look at an object, the light that bounces off from the object and enters your eye is converted into electrical impulses that your brain turns into an image that you can make out. This process takes place quite rapidly- about a tenth of a second. However, during the period, your eyes receive a constant stream of light and a continuous supply of information, which makes it difficult for your brain to focus all at once.

So to compensate the tenth of a second lag during processing and help you concentrate on what’s important, your brain takes shortcuts.

So optical illusions basically trick out brains by taking advantage of these shortcuts. In other words, optical illusions take advantage of how our eyes and brain process visual information as a way to trick us into seeing or not seeing certain images or patterns.

Most optical illusions also take advantage of other areas such as Peripheral Vision, Mental Filtering, and Blind Spot.

With peripheral vision, your brain takes in what exactly is in your peripheral vision when focused on one point, leaving out some details in the process. In the case of mental filtering, your brain makes assumptions based on expectations, what you’ve learned, and on memory.

In a blind spot, it’s impossible to make out anything that is in the spot as there are no cells to process whatever you’re seeing. Therefore, optical illusions take advantage of this where when you close your eyes and look at an object, something else in the blind spot mysteriously disappears.

From the look of things, it evident that vision doesn’t have everything to do with your eyes. Of course, it’s impossible to see without your eyes, but it surely wouldn’t make any sense without your brain’s involvement.

So basically, optical illusions trick our brains to perceive images, patterns, or color in a manner that differs from objective reality, which is strange and at the same time, incredible.