Comments on: Optical Illusion of the Year

By: db

db — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:50:42 +0000

I’m not sure I entirely buy the explanation (that the brain’s vision center considers the images as a part of a single scene, and because the towers are parallel, that the brain interprets their non convergence as a divergence).

That may be the underlying reason, however, I think that the fact that the towers themselves appear to have converging sides due to perspective (and, probably, a wide-angle camera lens) is important. The right edge of the left tower and the left edge of the right tower are clearly not parallel, and that is a major contributor to the illusion.

By: jahigginbotham

jahigginbotham — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 04:09:20 +0000

Do the floor tiles here (in this article on doctored images) do the same thing?

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/08/23/weekinreview/20090823_FAKE_SS_2.html

By: Tim C

Tim C — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:08:45 +0000

While we’re at it, this is my favorite illusion page:
http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html

By: mark r

mark r — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:29:02 +0000

if you really wanna freak yourself out…..

put your fingers on each picture to line up against the edge of the tower like little backslashes. \ \

your fingers will very obviously be parallel, the images will still appear to be on an intercept course.

eerie.

By: Tim C

Tim C — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:53:38 +0000

“Next, on World of the Pyschic – gimme Ira – hairless pets. Weird.”

By: de stijl

de stijl — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:19:21 +0000

I was so ready to declare shenanigans on you and say that the second picture is obviously different until I measured the margins to the tower and the angle of the tower. Fuck, that is freaky.

Stupid brain, shut up or I’ll stab you with a Q-Tip!