What do optical illusions tell us?

Question

Give some examples, if possible.

Answer 1

Optical illusions simply tell us that our eyes can be deceived based on our perceptions. It's like the straight line with angle brackets on each side.

>-------<
<------->

(keep in mind, the text here doesn't do it justice)

The perception is that the top line is longer than the bottom line (when you see it drawn, of course) because of the shapes of the brackets. But in reality, the lines are the same length.

Again, this just shows that our preconceptions shape our visual perception of objects, meaning we can't be completely objective about everything we see. This is why onlookers to an accident will each see different things, even though they're all looking at the same accident. Our perceptions shape how we see things.

Answer 2

An optical illusion is something which isn't what it appears to be. Example, driving through the desert there appears to be a lake up ahead but when you get there it is just more sand. Has something to do with the way the neat reflects off of the sand. This is probably the most substle. But in life a lot of things aren't what they appear to be, it is our job to sort out what is really and what isn't. Big Job.

Answer 3

you have a blind spot where the retina enters the brain. That stem area is blind to sight and rather than seeing a black dot your brain fills in the missing information with surrounding in-put. There is a test pattern - it is a solid blue sheet with two small yellow dots located in the bottom corners - when you look at the full sheet up close the yellow dots disappear and turn blue - your retina stem could not see that blind area and filled it up with the surrounding blue.

There are many illusion from contrast to mirages. You can go on-line and find 100's

We see what the brain interrupts - we don't see anything but the frequency's of light - no ultra violet, gamma rays or radio waves. We see limited frequencies.

Bad in-put bad decisions.

Answer 4

An optical illusion is a visual misinterpretation. Ex: A river that looks like it is flowing up hill.

Answer 5

The eyes see, but the mind interprets.
We stood some distance away from what appeared to be a broad lake of silver-gray-blue water. We all thought the same thing. It turned-out to be a long-built-up mound of dirt, covered in snow, with the bank facing us being in the shade from the late afternoon's winter sun. We saw snow in the shade. We believed it was water. I have the picture to prove it.

Answer 6

...that our minds can play games wit us!