There are so many optical illusions that feature an object or picture that can be seen in two different ways. But have you ever seen an illusion that can be interpreted in three different ways?
This remarkable illusion is called Three-fold cubes, and it was put together by Guy Wallis and David Lloyd from the University of Queensland, Australia. It was a recent candidate for Illusion of Year 2013.
This illusion, called Rotation Generated by Translation, was the overall winner:
Explanation:
This illusion concerns apparent rotation generated by pure translation. Square patterns consisting of four segments appear to rotate when they move straightly at a constant speed across the grid background. More surprisingly, the rotations in opposite directions can be generated by exactly the same square patterns. This illusion might be explained by well-known inchworm illusion; inchworm illusion arises at the four segments one after another resulting in the impression of rotation. This illusion is new in the sense that the rotation is generated by pure translation.
This one's neat, too:
Cartoonists are known to use multiple illustrative techniques to depict fast moving objects. In the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote Show, for example, cartoonists drew multiple numbers of feet, usually streaky and blurred inside distorted loops under the cartoon characters’ torsos to symbolize rapid motion. Our illusion demonstrates that the perceived speed of objects can go twice as fast as their actual speed when objects getting blur while that are revolving rapidly in circular paths. This finding supports the view that the human brain uses many strategies to estimate speed of moving objects in the environment.
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