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02/11/2024

Optical Illusion

Look very closely. Can you see a man playing guitar on the right & a woman with her hands up carrying something on her head

Optical Illusion

An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. Although illusions distort the human perception of reality, they are generally shared by most people.

Illusions may occur with any of the human senses, but visual illusions (optical illusions) are the best-known and understood. The emphasis on visual illusions occurs because vision often dominates the other senses. For example, individuals watching a ventriloquist will perceive the voice is coming from the dummy since they are able to see the dummy mouth the words. Some illusions are based on general assumptions the brain makes during perception. These assumptions are made using organizational principles (e.g., Gestalt theory), an individual's capacity for depth perception and motion perception, and perceptual constancy. Other illusions occur due to biological sensory structures within the human body or conditions outside the body within one's physical environment.

The term illusion refers to a specific form of sensory distortion. Unlike a hallucination, which is a distortion in the absence of a stimulus, an illusion describes a misinterpretation of a true sensation. For example, hearing voices regardless of the environment would be a hallucination, whereas hearing voices in the sound of running water (or another auditory source) would be an illusion. So, it should not be wrong to consider that illusions are just "misinterpretations" on how our brain perceives something that exists (unlike a hallucination where a stimulus is absent).


Another Optical Illusion: Turn it Upside Down
This is amazing illusion - ir looks like a person reading while sitting on the surface. But it's just 'Stones' in the river. Zoom in on the picture, really amazing
Zoom in & watch closely