Optical Illusion: See the Future!

By Tim NewlincloseAuthor: Tim Newlin Name: Tim Newlin
Site: http://www.timtim.com
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By Tim Newlin

Regular contributor to the Gazette

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Stare at the black cross in the middle of this drawing. Keep your eyes on the cross and you will slowly see the pink dots be washed away by the rotating green dot! Now, try to follow the green dot with your eye around the circle. As you do, the green dot will disappear and all you will see is the pink dots! This is what we call an OPTICAL ILLUSION. Optical illusions are tricks that our eyes play on our brain or that our brain plays on our eyes! And scientists now think that this happens because we actually “see” into the future!

We do not know for sure why we see optical illusions. Some people think we see illusions because of the physical traits of the eye. Others think it is because of culture. Scientists who are trying to understand why we see optical illusions have discovered that not everyone sees them in the same way and people from different areas of the globe will see or not see Optical Illusions depending on the level of their civilization, education and exposure to media. Scientists have tried illusions out on some people in the African country of Uganda. The Ugandans who lived in the cities and had seen drawings and photographs were fooled by the illusions. However, those Ugandans who lived in the villages away from big cities and hadn’t seen drawings or photographs were not fooled at all. This evidence shows scientists that not only do the eye and the brain work together to make us see optical illusions, but past experience plays a part too.

One theory about why we see optical illusions is that the eye sees them, but your brain uses your past experiences to interpret what the eyes see. But new scientific evidence shows that Humans can actually see into the future! It’s not like the mystical predictive powers of Nostradamus, but the evidence shows that we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur. And the mechanism behind this 0.1 second prediction ability can also explain why we are tricked by Optical Illusions.

When light hits your retina, about one-tenth of a second goes by before the brain translates the signal into a visual perception of the world. Illusions occur when our brains attempt to perceive the future, and those perceptions don’t match reality. Evolution has programmed us so that geometric drawings that signal movement, forward or backward, up or down, give us premonitions or a quick one tenth of a second look into the future and our brains try to “see” what the world will look like in the next instant – it is a survival mechanism.

No matter what the reason or how they work, Optical Illusions are very interesting and lots of fun. If you have any really good optical illusions you wish to share with timtim, please join us and add them to the OPTICAL ILLUSION category.