1. Can you put the fish in the fishbowl?

Did you see a fish of a different color in the bowl? You have just experienced
an afterimage. In the retina of your eyes, there are three types of color receptors (cones) that
are most sensitive to either red, blue or green. When you stare at a particular color for too
long, these receptors get fatigued. When you then look at a different background, the
receptors that are tired do not work as well. Therefore, the information from all of the
different color receptors is not in balance. This will create the color afterimages.
2. Bezold effect
The smaller squares inside the blue and yellow squares are all the same color.
They seemdifferent (magenta and orange) because a color is perceived differently depending
on its relation to adjacent colors (here blue or yellow depending on the outer square)..
3. Caf Wall Illusion
The horizontal lines are straight, even though they do not seem straight. In this illusion, the
vertical zigzag patterns disrupt our horizontal perception.
5. How many legs does this elephant have?
Tricky, isnt it?! This picture is an impossible picture that also contains some subjective
contours, such as the Kanizsa Triangle below: A white triangle (pointing down) can be seen
in this figure even though no triangle is actually drawn. This effect is known as a subjective
or illusory contour. The contour of the triangle is created by the shapes around it.
6. The Mueller-Lyer Illusion
The two horizontal lines are of the same length, even though the one at the
bottom seemslonger. As you know, the visual angle gets smaller with distance, so the brain
automatically perceives objects at farther distances to be bigger.
In general, lines that have inward flaps, such as corner of a building, are relatively the nearest
points of the overall object. Similarly, lines with outward flaps are found at the longer
distance, as the farthest corner of a room. So in the Mueller-Lyer illusion, the brain perceives
the line with outward flaps to be at a farther point as compared to the line with inward flaps.
Consequently, the brain perceives the line with outward flaps to be longer..
8. The Ebbinghaus Illusion
The two orange circles are exactly the same size,even though the one on the
left seemssmaller. This size distortion may be caused by the size of the surrounding circles or
by their distance to the center circle..
9. Does Lincolns face look normal?
It seems normal but now, look at it upright: Lincolns eyes do not look quite right!
Some neurons in the brain seem specialized in processing faces. Faces are usually seen
upright. When presented upside down, the brain no longer recognizes a picture of a face as a
face but rather as an object. Neurons processing objects are different from those processing
faces and not as specialized. As a consequence these neurons do not respond to face
distortions as well. This explains why we miss the weird eyes when the face is inverted..
10. Can you see a baby?
Another great example of an illusory contour! The babys head is on the left, the babys feet
are against the trunk of the tree on the right..