February 7, 2021 If you’re like most people, you’ll probably see both wavy and zigzag lines, alternating in pairs, but that’s not exactly true…
Optical illusions are always interesting, and this somewhat creepy trick that tries to deceive our perception and lead us to wonder how we see the world around us, writes ScienceAlert.
What are the lines in the picture?
If you look at this picture, what lines do you see? Are they straight, zigzag lines or slightly curved waves? Do you see only one species or both?
This optical illusion was discovered by experimental psychologist Kohske Takahashi of Japan’s Chukyo University in 2017, and is called the “illusion of curvature blindness” and it’s just another example that proves we can’t always believe our eyes when we observe something.
If you’re like most people, you’ll probably see both wavy and zigzag lines, alternating in pairs, at least if you look at the lines on the gray background that dominates the middle of the image.
However, if you look at the lines in the upper left and lower right of the image where the background is white and black, respectively, do you notice a difference?
Our eyes deceive us
If the lines on these black and white backgrounds look wavy, and on the gray background next to them you also see zigzag lines, congratulations: you have just diagnosed yourself with blindness of curvature.
But no worries, it’s not about some kind of health problem.
But why do most people see zigzag lines, when in fact all the lines in the picture are wavy?
According to Takahashi, this could be related to the way our eyes distinguish bends and angles in the real world – and it is possible that the way we distinguish them triggers some kind of conflict in the system of visual perception in our brain.
It does not interfere with our daily lives
Takahashi in his scientific paper proposes the idea that the basic mechanisms for the perception of a slight curve and the mechanisms of perception of an angle compete against each other in an unbalanced way, and the perception of an angle can be dominant in a system for visual perception.
But why do angles prevail over curves? Hypothetically, this could be due to the way people had to adapt to the fictional geometric shapes of the modern physical world that surrounds us.
“I would say that our eyes and brain may be evolutionarily more adapted to the perception of angles than to the perception of bends,” Takahashi told The Telegraph.
“We are surrounded by artificial creations that have many more angles than they are present in the natural environment. This visual phenomenon does not cause a problem in our everyday life because otherwise this illusion would have been discovered earlier, ”Takahashi said.
Taken from: https://www.rtl.hr/