How do optical illusions work?

The optical illusions raise many questions about our brain and its functioning. A phenomenon that arouses the curiosity and amazement of all of us and that seems like a thing of magic, but that has a logical explanation and also helps us understand how our brain works. So much so, that optical illusions are often used in scientific research, cognitive therapies or even to determine mental difficulties.

Why we have optical illusions

How do illusions work? The answer is that all these illusions disobey a certain scene created by our brain. That is, they do not comply with the rules of size, perspectives, backgrounds, figures, distances, movements, etc. Our brain completes the situation so that it acquires a logical coherence and, when illusions break all our schemes that incredible optical effect occurs.

This phenomenon helps us understand to what extent the visual limitations of human beings go. Likewise, its effects can vary significantly depending on the person. Generally, all these illusions can be influenced by our knowledge about the world, or they can have a psychological component associated with effects of color, movement, brightness, intensity of light and a long etcetera.

Different types of optical illusions

These interesting and magical phenomena have been used numerous times in the cinema and in many works of art to cause a false impression of shape, dimension, depth or perspective, surprising viewers. There are many types of optical illusions, such as the diagonal lines that are parallel even though they do not look like it, or the Rubin Vase that tricks our brain into making us see two different images.

Sharpen your wit and visual ability to discover the mysterious construction of some workers working on a very particular terrace, or the singular path that confuses our brain and drives us completely crazy.

Some images that distort reality into believing that it is not possible, largely because of the knowledge and rules governing our brain.