Okay, for this illusion, instead of staring at it, stare off to the side. Look at this illusion with your peripheral vision (from the side). Don’t completely look away from it, just look at it from the corner of your eye. Scroll down for the explanation of it. Can you believe it, and illusion where I tell you NOT to stare at the illusion! Hah. Now, look off to the side, just a few inches, or about 10 centimeters for it to work.
This is another one that I find to be pretty incredible. The animated image above shows three cylinders that appear to move up and down, and as they move up and down, it looks like they are moving to the right. This effect is enhanced if you are looking at the cylinders from the side. Yes, they are moving up and down, but they are moving perfectly in a vertical line. They aren’t moving to the right even one pixel!
Why does this work? Well, in your peripheral vision, your mind is more trained to recognize motion that straight on, so perhaps that’s why it works better when you look at it from the side. Also, the bigger the illusion the better. In this next box, you’ll see the same animated image, but it’s much smaller, and the effect isn’t quite as good, but you may still find that it’s slightly noticeable.
Now this isn’t as amazing as the bigger illusion above, but it still works! Do you think that we notice the bigger spots more from an evolutionary standpoint, because bigger things would mean more danger, therefore we would devote more attention to them? Or does it just seem to work better because you can more clearly see the rotating columns?
