Mind-Blowing Optical Illusions

look at this lady did I stutter look at her now focus on the Red Dot on her nose for 10 seconds don't look away and don't blink all right now once this counter's run out I'm going to quickly switch over to a blank wide screen I need you to keep your eyes open the whole time are you ready and are you seeing what I'm seeing yep you can see that lady clear as day in natural colors which means that just got you to see something that you actually didn't see how cool is that but how

does it work well follow me as we take a look at some amazing optical illusions and discover how they [Music] work paradia do you see human faces and things with random patterns like this coffee this tree stump this old wall some people claim they can even see a face in the moon we see faces in everything so with that in mind can you see what's hidden in this [Music] image did you spot it yes there's a face under that ear our tendency to find patterns like this in abstract places is called paradia more often than

not we see faces where there aren't real faces because humans are super attuned to seek out faces it's part of our social psychology and using this to make optical illusions dates all the way back to 1880 so we've known about the phenomenon a long time here is another variant with a bear see if you can spot the [Music] face did you get it right here easy right all right warm-ups over let's put your paradia to the test how many faces do you see in this tree you've got 10 seconds [Music] go all right time's up

how many did you get six s let me know down in the comments and while you're there why i' hit those like And subscribe buttons as well okay so how many faces were there there's actually 10 he that's at least four more than I spotted right it's time we turn this concept on his head literally corrective paradia look at this picture of a face flipped upside down while it might not seem out of the ordinary at first look closer see it let's flip it over to the correct orientation and ah how did that ever look

normal upside down the image had been edited in a pretty simple way the eyes and mouth have been flipped around here's another example happy t Tay Tay monster Tay Tay what's going on here well as it turns out our minds are so hardwired to recognize and read faces that when we're presented with one that doesn't quite work our brains tend to correct the image to make sense of it as the eyes and mouth are so expressive if they're readable we can imagine the rest easily it's believed we do this because recognizing human expressions and faces

was so important to our survival as we were evolving that our brain jumps through hoops to do it as has been dubbed the Thatcher effect as an early example of the illusion use British ex- prime minister Margaret Thatcher as an example actually are we sure this one is even flipped she scalled so much it's kind of hard to tell funnily enough there's actually another way our brains can be tricked by eyes and mouths on faces and that's by doubling them up stare at this image of a man with four eyes and two mouths notice how

your eyes kind of slip over it this is because your brain is trying to find an anchor point you know that a human should have one mouth and two eyes so you keep trying to find the correct version of the face inside these ones can you tell which eyes and mouths here are the originals it's way harder than you think I'll try this one impossible right monster faces as we've learned faces can short circuit our brains pretty easily still this one Takes the Cake I want you to stare at the cross in the middle of

the screen and do not look away see if you notice anything strange [Music] happening pretty freaky huh what's going on here is that your brain is noticing the facial features in both the left and right images but because they're in your peripheral vision the face data is incomplete to make sense of it your brain smooshes them together this makes the faces seem warped almost like caricatures when you're not looking right at them okay let's make this a competition without looking away from the cross can you tell who's appearing in the images on the left and

right oh man I thought Sid the Sloth was one of them but it's Tom Cruz and will farell okay try this one is one of them witch damn no Angelina Julie and Nicole Kidman all right last one is that Dad no Nicholas Cage and George Clooney did you get any of them right let me know down below all right these are freaking me out who's ready for a change in perspective Ames room hands up do we have any short kings in the audience I see you and respect you my brothers Still you're probably not this

short dang that dude's tiny or is he whoa what's going on what you're currently looking at isn't some sort of ethereal between world it's called an as room this is a room constructed in a specially elongated way and then decorated without of proportion patterns to conceal depth and so it appears to be a totally normal room from the right angle as you can see from our high-tech reconstruction it's a pretty elaborate setup when viewed from the right spot though the effect called perspective compression tricks our brains into thinking something far away is actually just smaller

aim rooms can create some really intense visuals where people in the foreground appear to be on the same plane as those further away making it look like they're vastly different sizes some rooms even add in furniture or decorations that are also warped in proportion and location but that look the same relative size in a shot like this helping Force the perspective and making the illusion more difficult to spot but did you see through this illusion I bet you won't with this next one though anamorphic now perspective compression isn't the only way to warp how we

see the world as artist Regina Silvera knows all too well back in 2010 she created the Abyssal exhibition and boy does it live up to its name are these guys floating over a steep job next to a skyscraper not quite the flat Gallery floor has had Windows on it painted at a specific angle but when seen from an oblique angle like on top of this perfectly placed set of stairs the stretched windows on the floor appear like regular windows on a wall making these guys look like they're floating this is known as an anamorphic effect

and it's mind-blowing but when applied to a much larger scale anamorphic art gets way more interesting as French artist Jr has proven repeatedly back in 2021 he applied laita or the wound onto this Palazo in Florence Italy now viewing it headon it looks a little off but if you get it at the right angle it looks like you're peering right into the heart of the building through a gaping crack but as huge as this is it's not Jr's biggest work no that' be his takeover of the Lou Museum back in 2019 he and an army

of 400 volunteers painted the courtyard of the famous art museum like this huh that doesn't look like anything to be honest but if we take a look at it from this angle holy cow he turned the Lou's Famous glass pyramid roof into an even bigger pyramid buried beneath the ground visitors were allowed to get up close with it but every step they took on the paper tore it up gradually eroding it until big holes began appearing in this gigantic illusion well I guess that's one way to see through it negative after image all right back

to that picture of the woman from the very start of the video how is it you were able to see this image in corrected colors when she wasn't on the screen want to try it again here let's use a different image this time okay that's quite different but you know the drill focus on that dot don't blink and keep your eyes open all right white screen coming up now man that's magical except not quite it's all down to the cells in your eyes called ganglion receptor cells these cells can identify pairs of colors in the

images you see black and white red and green blue and yellow these channels combine but never cross over that's why you never see a r green or a Bluey yellow so when you stare at an inverted image like this you over expose or tire out one half of these color receptor pairs then when you look at the wi screen those exposed receptors are weak but the opposite receptors are still firing not as strongly as the other receptors were but more than they are once fatigued so the lack of green black and blue makes you think

you're seeing a mix of red white and yellow turning this negative image into a positive image color me impressed growing cars okay you have 5 seconds for this next one take a look at this image and tell me which car is the [Music] largest time's up did you say this one nope how many of you said this one wrong again that just leaves this one right wrong in fact none of them are the largest because they're all the same size maybe this image didn't work for you so let's change the angle take a look at

these cars they can't possibly all be the same size right well they are so know how the heck is this possible well it's all to do with our sense of perspective again you know that objects appear larger to us the closer they are so when we see an image like this our brains know that the car should be getting smaller the further away from our Viewpoint they are so if there's something in an image that makes it look like things are getting further away which in this case is the road then our brain thinks that

if the car isn't shrinking in size it must just be bigger pretty lazy brain pretty lazy the ponzo illusion if you think we need cars roads and fancy rooms to mess with our perspective then prepare to be humbled some of the most effective ways Our Brands can be tricked is with just a few lines here which line do you think is bigger Yeah by this point you should know it's not what you might expect the truth is that they're the same exact size here's a version playing on the idea of train tracks do the yellow

lines look different in length to you top ones longer right well despite what your eyes might tell you those two yellow lines are actually the same length the reason this happens is that the two lines on the side slanting inward creates a feeling of depth that we project onto the horizontal lines even when it isn't there even simpler is the Mueller liar illusion take a look now tell me which line top or bottom do you think is longer while the Top Line may appear obviously longer they are in fact the same size see once again

it's the sling lines that are the culprit the top image suggests a longer horizontal line branching out while the bottom suggests a shorter line being squished that's it let's move into the real world I'm tired of all these tricky lines elusive cubes so our sense of depth can be easily fooled in 2D images but I bet you think it's easier to spot a 3D illusion right let's test it when you spot what's really going on here tell me down in the comments wa that Cube wasn't a cube at all that's a Nifty trick considering all

it takes is three pieces of paper in the right camera angle all right let's try again watch this next clip carefully and let me know when you think you've spotted something out of the ordinary [Music] man I was convinced that one was a cube until the very end I think the light in this one interferes with the Shadows making it harder to determine its real shape the outlines on the edges of these fake cubes also help sell the illusion of depth but again that means they only look right from the perfect angle kind of like

me trying on a new pair of pants Shades of Gray take a look at this image looks like a standard chess board I think T I assume that cylinder is a mega queen or something I don't know chess anyway look at the squares labeled A and B which is the darker color did you say a congratulations you're wrong but a is what most people would answer as you can see here when the squares are placed side by side they're actually the exact same shade this illusion Works in a similar way to the last one we

all know that when a shadow is cast over an object its Hue becomes darker here's a similar example called The Corn Suite illusion take a look at the two gradients which side of the image would you say is darker left or right in reality the far ends of the image are the same shade we see the darker shade on the left which colors no pun intended our understanding of the gradient progression H this sounds familiar doesn't it by this point you might be realizing that a lot of optical illusions take advantage of the fact that

our brains tend to fill in the gaps much more than we realize similarly to how it assumes the shadow here must be darker it assumes the furthest car in this image must be the biggest it's theorized our brains do this because of how important fast reaction times were during Evolution after all if you were in the middle of the chungle and thought you spotted a tiger would you rather stop and have a good think or get the heck out of there even if it just turned out to be a stripey rock this is true in

all sorts of wacky ways look at this image for a few seconds yeah I'm willing to bet when you first saw it you did a double take the perspective here really makes it look like that head belongs on top of those bare shoulders but it actually belongs to the body with the white shirt still our brains would rather make a quick assumption about an image than refuse to interpret it our lazy brains can be tricked by the stupidest stuff can't they invented motion so we stupid humans can get easily confused by still images but motion

can be just as baffling case in point what you're currently looking at is a circle moving up and down inside another Circle the movement is pretty stiff huh well in a few seconds I'll make it smooth as butter let's see what happens when I put another Circle here moving horizontally now let's add another and another by the time we get to eight circles something crazy happens instead of seeing eight individually moving circles we're seeing one large rolling Circle if that one left you unimpressed though then take a look at these discs but as a word

of warning if you're sensitive to flashing lights You Should Skip ahead 2 minutes as the next three Illusions all include flashing images what direction do you think they're moving did you say left right in reality they aren't moving at all see I love this one why do we think they're moving though well our brains tend to lump multiple elements of visual information including motion together this means when we see a bunch of smaller moving objects our brain tries to make sense of them by finding a way to connect them this is how a bunch of

circles moving back and forth can become a rolling Circle but it's also the reason some wobbling squiggles on a screen can look like an animated character and not just a bunch of moving lines sorry I know that's probably the least magical way you can describe animation let's move on Cube movement speaking of Animation I want you to take a look at these moving cubes see if you can tell which of the two of them is moving the fastest as they change direction and spin around did you guess neither of them that's right as hard as

it might be to believe neither of these cubes are moving what's actually going on is that the strobing colors and lights on the cubes are reminiscent of movement even though the cubes themselves are totally still as our brains try to interpret how the cubes are moving the arrows offer a subliminal suggestion which our brains pick up on look at this even simpler version of the same trick how many times do you think these cubes rotate in 5 seconds that's right they don't these cubes are in fact still images with sections of their line strobing in

a manner that suggests their spinning if you pay attention to just one edge of a cube at a time it becomes easy to spot of course the magic doesn't come from the shapes but from the illusion of movement take a look at these two color wheels to me the trick works even better with these than the cubes good thing too I'm getting sick of being tricked by all these dang cubes the spinning dancer for our next trick I'm going to need a volunteer step right up step right up you there in the audience the silhouette

of a woman comprised of 34 frames of Animation you'll be perfect now we have our lovely volunteer I need something from you focus on the spinning dancer on your screen and try not to look away paying close attention I want you to tell me which way is she spinning left are you sure look at her arm now look at her leg she's spinning right oh or is it left okay concentrate on one area and you might just force yourself to flip the animation around crazy right I promise you the animation is a simple Loop and

you're not being tricked what you just witnessed is perhaps the most popular example of what's called the silhouette illusion the reason it works is down to the lack of clear visual information were given the dancer is clearly moving However the fact she is in silhouette means she is completely lacking in depth this makes it harder to tell whether she is standing on her right leg and spinning left or her left leg and spinning right for another example check out this rotating shape which way does it appear to be spinning to you are you sure about

that try looking at another corner of the image then back personally I can flip this one around pretty easily if you've only been able to see her spinning in One Direction so far here let me help out pretty spooky now those simple lines are able to give our brains all the information they need to decide which way the formally elusive dancer is spinning and a round of applause for my lovely volunteer there 34 frames over MO I after effects are you ready for an old school optical illusion and by old school I mean ancient school

as this illusion was written about by Aristotle all the way back in 350 BCE you see this still image of a waterfall well your brain is going to make it move stare at the Blue Dot on your monitor and try not to look away for the next 20 seconds I'll even play some soothing waterfall noises while you do whoa is that River moving backwards actually it's not moving at all this is an after effect illusion originally named the waterfall illusion in the late 1800s supposedly because if you stared at a waterfall long enough rocks jutting

out might appear as if they were moving up the water however it doesn't just work for vertically scrolling images basically any spiraling scrolling or wobbling pattern can have an effect don't believe me stare at the following moving pattern for 20 seconds then look at your keyboard I'll wait [Music] [Music] [Music] okay look now ah my keyboard has turned into alphabet soup how did this happen well it's all down to the visual cortex in our brain and how we interpret moving patterns the longer we remain fixated on a motion or a moving pattern the more dull

the response time of cells in our visual cortex become such that when we look away from the source of that movement our brains are essentially still looking for it and place it over whatever we're looking at interesting ly this often has the effect of creating movement inverse to what we were just looking at this is why that River appeared to be flowing backwards maybe if I watch a time lapse of someone going bald then look in the mirror I'll remember what it was like to have hair motion induced blindness be honest how are your eyes

doing sorry to say but they can't rest yet set your peers on the dot in the middle of this image and concentrate hard after a few seconds you might start to notice something or should I say stop noticing something if you're still looking at that dot in the center of the screen you're probably experiencing what's called motion induced blindness here's another variant I find works even better remember focus on the [Music] dot after you do for a few seconds can you tell what the objects on the wheel are I can't motion induced blindness refers to

a phenomenon where information in our peripheral vision seems to fade away when motion is introduced to the center of our field of view while there are numerous theories as to why this happens one that seems to make sense is that our brain is eliminating extraneous information that is to say if something is rushing straight at you or you're speeding towards something that thing is probably more important than anything to either side of you probably oh a cupcake varying speed take a look at the following Loop kind of trippy right it just goes on forever how

fast would you say the camera is traveling here walking pace zooming along well try this out using your hands cover the left and right sides of the image so you're only focusing on the center huh weird I could have sworn we were traveling faster than that okay let's try the opposite now cover the middle of the image and look at the edges whoa we're zooming now while the effect here is dramatic it makes total sense the middle part of the image here doesn't actually change too much as we move ahead it's more like the Horizon

is constantly slowly coming into view by contrast on the outer edges details come into focus and leave in the blink of an eye you can test this out in the real world too just hop in a Formula 1 car drive at Max Speed and look away from the road do not do not do not not actually do this that would be insane Parallax I know we've gone over some crazy stuff in this video and have had a lot of our preconceived notions questioned but still we can all at least agree that commercial planes can't hover

they can fly forward but they can't hover everyone knows the what the heck okay don't panic this isn't proof you're living in a video game that's glitching out what you're looking at here is what's known known as The Parallax effect it occurs when objects in motion are witnessed by a spectator whose Viewpoint is also changing it's most pronounced when the viewer is moving faster than the observed object here the filmer is also in a fast moving plane creating the illusion the plane in the window is hovering in the same spot it's easy to spot this

effect with planes as they tend to you know be easy to spot themselves however the effect can also occur in standard photography like in this drone shot of the Eiffel Tower see how the foreground and background appear to be scrolling in different directions that's because their relative positions are changing in relation to the camera so next time you see a plane Frozen in the air just remember it's only a movement based optical illusion either that or you need to restart the Matrix segmented animation speaking of movement here's a fun one take a look at this

wonderful piece of artwork what does it look like to you a roar Shack test no it couldn't be more obvious what it is oh well here maybe this will make it more [Music] [Music] obvious here's another what does it look like to you a beautiful flower perhaps let's take a look [Music] the reason these segmented animation Illusions work is similar to how a zoat Trope Works zoat tropes are those physical discs or cylinders you spend to reveal a little animation the multiple images in a zoat Trope act as the frames of the short animation when

it spun fast enough her eyes sto distinguishing those as individual frames and blend them together into one fluid animation similarly every frame of these segmented animations is present at once that's why they look like weird blobs when a sheet of paper with missing sections is run over the static image it blocks out certain frames whil it's leaving others visible this leads to the illusion of movement and the animation Works forwards and backwards interestingly segmenting our field of view can mess with our perception of speed and movement too take a look at the following animation and

tell me are the blocks moving at the same or different rates to me the Blue Block appears slightly ahead while the Yellow Block is trailing a little behind let's see if that's true wow looks like they're actually moving at the same speed this is likely because the darker bar Blends in more with the dark lines while the yellow bar sticks out making its movement appear more segmented all right I'm getting a little motion sick who wants to take a break and grab a coffee Cafe wall illusion okay we've seen a lot of wacky motion animation

and Camera trickery so far for this next illusion I want to go back to something simpler as simple as you can imagine really take a look at this picture and tell me are the lines in it straight or not H feels like it shouldn't be that hard to answer does it well how about we get rid of all those weird shapes and colors and really get down to Basics there that's better so are these lined straight no they can't possibly be can they well those two images are examples of what have come to be known

as the cafe wall illusion and the lines in both of them are completely straight don't believe me here let's zoom in what the line doesn't slope at all what's going on here well the really mind-blowing thing is no one really knows since it was first discovered by Hugo moonberg back in 1894 the leading theory has been that it comes down to the way our brains interpret contrast different neurons in our brains respond to dark and light colors this means that darker lines between the white and black squares are being simultaneously interpreted in two different ways

which causes the illusion of sloping lines in this version of the illusion the same effect is perhaps being triggered by these the little checkered squares running along the horizontal lines however that's still all only a theory but it's a theory that would explain why it isn't limited to just horizontal patterns check out this variant but don't fall in while this image may appear to be a deep spiraly Vortex look closer that's right those circles don't connect at all it's just multiple circles not a spiral crazy right here's one final image take a look here the

lines don't appear to slope but bulge like the imag is being pinched or squeezed still when we Zoom in we can see that every line in the image is perfectly straight BL what Cafe would put something this disorienting on a wall the cfer illusion look at this image and tell me what shapes do you see squares right maybe you said lines you probably didn't say circles though that's right there are circles in this image can you see them all right I'll Point them out here still having trouble okay let's zoom in this is known as

the Coffer illusion and was created by the neuroc coret society in 2006 as an entry for the best illusion of the Year contest which I really wish I knew about before starting this video anyway while you almost certainly picked up on the rectangular shapes first if you stare hard enough you'll find the vertical bars actually create perfect circles one theory on this illusion posits that when visual information is unclear our brains are more likely to search for corners or hard angles as their anchor points from which we can try and make sense of the rest

of the information who knew Corners could be so confusing that must be why I cut them all the time well those were some of the craziest brain busting Illusions I was able to find which was your favorite did I miss any good ones let me know in the comments down below and thanks for watching [Music]