RESEARCHERS have come up with a brilliant idea for an optical illusion, one that appears to show rays of light.
Sunray Illusion appears to show bright rays emanating from the center of intersecting ring patterns.
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There are many optical illusions that play with the mind, and The Sunray Illusion is no different.
Light colored rays resemble how light passes through clouds.
But in this case it’s a little more amazing, since the rays are not actually part of the drawing, but are created by the brain when it interprets what the eyes see.
The illusion was created by Michael Karlovich and Pascal Wallisch of New York University.
Interestingly, by inverting the colors of the illusion so that the geometric shapes are drawn in white on a black background, the rays appear black.
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If you change the background, the Sunray Illusion rays will appear stronger.
The Karlovich and Wallisch painting participated in the contest for the best illusion of the year 2020 and was among the ten finalists.
Along with their entry, they wrote: “When presented with intersecting ring shapes, most people see bright rays coming from the center.
“However, these glowing rays are completely illusory, they are not actually there.
“The tendency to perceive illusory lightning is stronger if there are more intersection points in these shapes and they are better aligned, allowing our brains to ‘connect the dots,’ producing the lightning.”
They added: “So this illusion is an example of our tendency to interpret information presented to us in the environment in the most likely way.”
The Illusion of the Year competition is an annual celebration of the creativity of the world’s leading illusion research community, according to its website.
Entries come from all over the world and are evaluated by an international jury before narrowing them down to a top ten list.
Sunbeam Illusion accompanies many others, including Disappearing Coin, Hidden Artist, and Word Quiz.
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Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education