On a computer screen or on paper, optical illusions can be fascinating. These optical illusions provide a fascinating display of how our brain processes sensory information to create the illusion of reality.
Lines that bend and buckle forms that pop out and color variations – all of these are elements of optical illusions. Human visual systems are constantly observing the light or color, distance or dimensions.
What is an optical illusion?
An optical illusion occurs when an image is able to confuse the eyes and brain. In a fraction of a second hundreds of images are being transmitted to the brain by the visual system. The brain works to organize this data by defining boundaries, analyzing contrasting areas or colors, and using its past experiences, what it’s supposed to see.
Sometimes, things can go wrong. Optical illusions aren’t caused by a malfunction in the eyes or the brain, they are just an issue between the two on what’s visible. Other senses can also experience similar illusions. For instance, if you see a crawling insect on your arm, it could look like it is going down.
There are three kinds of optical illusions: literal, mental and physiological. The physiological illusions are those which appear to be moving however, they’re actually still images. They occur due to the brain over stimulating its senses as it tries to make sense of motion in an image that is still. The illusions that are created include things such as the Ponzo Illusion, where two lines appear to have different lengths.
Optic Illusions in Advertising – optics
Optical illusions can be found in museums, psychology classes and even by your hippie pal with posters adorning his walls. But you might not have believed that they could also be used in marketing. They are very effective in drawing attention to people, creating a feeling of movement or, in certain cases, crinkly eyelids.
Jane Pain, a popular company that sells lingerie, recently announced an optical illusion campaign showcasing busts and bums on their merchandise. If you examine them closely to the image, however, you’ll notice that the body parts not being covered are actually elbows and knees.
The Kit Kat truck is another interesting optical illusion that can be used in ads. It looks like the driver is sitting in a hammock, instead of moving. This optical illusion is a great method to draw attention of people and to convince customers to pause and enjoy an Kit Kat. The advertisement also employs perceptual sets and priming to build a positive relationship to the brand.
Art and Optical Illusions
Optical illusions are an increasingly popular feature of contemporary art, with works such as Bridget Riley’s swirls of spots and stripes and MC Escher’s never-ending staircase and Penrose triangle being well-known examples. But optical effects have been an integral strand of art from the Renaissance in which artists employed linear perspective and camera obscura in order to create amazing illusions of space and depth.
Op art, often geometric, is non-representational. It utilizes lines or shapes and blocks of color to create illusions of movement concealed images, stretching or warping. The popularity of the movement began in the 1960s thanks to the work of Victor Vasarely and the 1965 exhibition The Responsive Eye which brought the movement greater exposure to the public.
Influenced by the op art movement, the painter Joseph Albers experimented with how colors interact and influence each other. His Homage to the Square series of paintings uses colored squares that are layered on top of each other to investigate how different colors influence our perception of shape and the depth.
Optical illusions in music
The latest optical illusion that is making the in the streets is a musical illusion. It involves a file layout of musical notes that are identical. When they are played back in tandem on a piano they create the impression of the lyrics of a song but in reality there are no lyrics!
These clever illusions show how the brain utilizes information from your senses make a mental picture of the world around you. It doesn’t matter if it happens naturally or through design our brains are extremely efficient.
Artists like Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely and Jesus Rafael Soto experimented with illusionary effects within their art. Soto went further, creating immersive installations that blurred the distinction between artwork and viewer, inviting them to interact with his art.
