List of optical illusions

This is a list of optical illusions.

 Name Example Notes

An afterimage or ghost image is an optical illusion that

Afterimage illusion refers to an image continuing to appear in one's vision
after the exposure to the original image has ceased.

Afterimage on empty
shape (also known This type of illusions is designed to exploit graphical
as color dove similarities.
illusion)

These are images that can form two separate pictures.

Ambiguous image For example, the image shown forms a rabbit and a
duck.

An Ames room is a distorted room that is used to create

Ames room illusion
an optical illusion.

A window is formed in the shape of a trapezium. It is

Ames trapezoid
often hung and spun around to provide the illusion that
window illusion
the window rotates through less than 180 degrees.

The autokinetic effect, or autokinesis, occurs when a

Autokinetic effect
stationary image appears to move.

An autostereogram is a single-image stereogram (SIS),

designed to create the visual illusion of a three-
dimensional (3D) scene from a two-dimensional image in
Autostereogram
the human brain. An ASCII stereogram is an image that
is formed using characters on a keyboard.Magic Eye is
an autostereogram book series.

The barber pole illusion is a visual illusion that reveals

Barberpole illusion biases in the processing of visual motion in the human
brain.

When a disk that has lines or colours on it is spun, it can

Benham's top
form arcs of colour appear.

Movement that appears to occur when fixed pictures turn

Beta movement
on and off.
Bezold Effect An apparent change of tone of a colour due to the
alteration of the colour of the background.

Also known as "poiuyt" or "devil's fork", this illusion is an

Blivet impossible image because in reality the shape cannot
exist.

This illusion is a pattern where different coloured squares

on a wall appear to form horizontal curved lines. It is
Café wall illusion
named such because this is the type of artwork often
seen on café walls.

A catoptric cistula is a box with insides made of mirrors

Catoptric cistula
so as to distort images of objects put into the box.

The checker shadow illusionshows that when a

Checker shadow shadow is cast onto a checked board, the colours of
illusion squares A and B in the photos appear to be dif
ferent,
when in fact they are the same.

The Chubb illusion is an optical illusion or error in visual

perception in which the apparent contrast of an object
Chubb illusion
varies substantially to most viewers depending on its
relative contrast to the field on which it is displayed.
Colour constancy is an example of subjective
constancy and a feature of the human color perception
system which ensures that the perceived color of objects
Color constancy remains relatively constant under varying illumination
conditions. A green apple for instance looks green to us
at midday, when the main illumination is whitesunlight,
and also at sunset, when the main illumination is red.
The color phi phenomenonis a perceptual illusion in
Color phi
which a disembodied perception of motion is produced by
phenomenon
a succession of still images.
Contingent
perceptual aftereffect
Convergence
micropsia
Cornsweet illusion An illusion where two colours can obviously be seen to
be different when placed directly beside eachother;
 however, when the two colours are separatedby a thick
black line, they appear to be of the same hue.

An optical illusion of relative size perception. The two

Delboeuf illusion black circles are exactly the same size; however , the one
on the left seems larger.

Disappearing Model A trompe-l'œil body painting byJoanne Gair.

The Ebbinghaus illusion, or Titchener circles, is an

optical illusion of relative size perception. The two orange
Ebbinghaus illusion
circles are exactly the same size; however , the one on
the right appears larger.

The Ehrenstein illusion is an optical illusion studied by

the German psychologistWalter Ehrenstein in which the
Ehrenstein illusion
sides of a square placed inside a pattern of concentric
circles take an apparent curved shape.

Fechner color

Figure-ground
(perception)

Filling-in

Flash lag illusion

Application used in film and architecture to create the
Forced perspective
illusion of larger, more distant objects.

The Fraser spiral illusion, or false spiral, or the twisted

cord illusion, was first described by the British
Fraser spiral illusion psychologist Sir James Fraser in 1908. The overlapping
black arc segments appear to form a spiral; however , the
arcs are a series of concentric circles.
Gravity hill

Any kind of grid that deceives a person's vision. The two

most common types of grid illusions are the Hermann
grid illusion (1870) and the scintillating grid illusion
(1994). The first is characterized by "ghostlike" grey
blobs perceived at the intersections of a white (or light-
colored) grid on a black background. The grey blobs
disappear when looking directly at an intersection. The
Grid illusion second is constructed by superimposing white discs on
the intersections of orthogonal gray bars on a black
background. Dark dots seem to appear and disappear
rapidly at random intersections, hence the label
"scintillating". When a person keeps his or her eyes
directly on a single intersection, the dark dot does not
appear. The dark dots disappear if one is tooclose to or
too far from the image.

The Hering illusion (1861): When two straight and

parallel lines are presented in front of radial background
Hering illusion
(like the spokes of a bicycle), the lines appear as if they
were bowed outwards.

The Hollow-Face illusion is an optical illusion in which

Hollow-Face illusion the perception of a concave mask of a face appears as a
normal convex face.

A Hybrid image is an optical illusion developed at MIT in

Hybrid image which an image can be interpreted in one of two dif
ferent
ways depending on viewing distance.

Illusory contours or subjective contours are a form of

Illusory contours visual illusion where contours are perceived without a
luminance or color change across the contour .

Illusory motion
Impossible object
Irradiation illusion

An isometric illusion (also called an ambiguous figure

Isometric illusion or inside/outside illusion) is a type of optical illusion,
specifically one due tomultistable perception.

The Jastrow illusion is an optical illusion discovered by

Jastrow illusion
the American psychologistJoseph Jastrow in 1889.

The Kanizsa triangle is an optical illusion first described

Kanizsa triangle by the Italian psychologistGaetano Kanizsa in 1955. It is
a triangle formed of illusory contours.

The Kinetic depth effect refers to the phenomenon

whereby the three-dimensional structural form of a
silhouette can be perceived when the object is moving. In
Kinetic Depth Effect the absence of other visual depth cues, this might be the
only perception mechanism available to infer the object's
shape. Additionally the direction of motion can reverse
due to the existence of multiple 3D visual solutions.
The Leaning tower illusionis an optical illusion that
Leaning tower
presents two identical images of theLeaning Tower of
illusion
Pisa side by side.

Lilac chaser is a visual illusion, also known as the Pac-

Lilac chaser
Man illusion.

Liquid crystal shutter

glasses
Lunar terminator illusionis an optical illusion where the
Lunar terminator
apparent source of sunlight illuminating the moon does
illusion
not corresponding with the actual position of the sun.

Mach bands is an optical illusion named after the

Mach bands
physicist Ernst Mach.

McCollough effect The McCollough effect (1965) is a phenomenon of

human visual perception in which colorless gratings
 appear colored contingent on the orientation of the
gratings. It is an aftereffect requiring a period of induction
to produce it.

The missing square puzzleis an optical illusion used in

Missing square
mathematics classes to help students reason about
puzzle
geometrical figures.

The Moon illusion is an optical illusion in which the

Moon illusion Moon appears larger near thehorizon than it does while
higher up in the sky.

Motion aftereffect

Play media

Motion illusion

The Müller-Lyer illusion is an optical illusion consisting

Müller-Lyer illusion
of a stylized arrow.

Multistability
Musion Eyeliner

The Necker cube is an optical illusion first published in

Necker cube
1832 by Swiss crystallographer Louis Albert Necker.

Numerosity
adaptation effect
 The Orbison illusion is an optical illusion that was first
Orbison illusion
described by the psychologistWilliam Orbison in 1939.

The Penrose stairs was created by Lionel Penrose and

his son Roger Penrose.[1] A variation on the Penrose
triangle, it is a two-dimensional depiction of a staircase in
Penrose stairs which the stairs make four 90-degree turns as they
ascend or descend yet form a continuous loop, so that a
person could climb them forever and never get any
higher.

The Penrose triangle was first created by the Swedish

artist Oscar Reutersvärd in 1934. The mathematician
Penrose triangle Roger Penrose independently devised and popularised it
in the 1950s, describing it as "impossibility in its purest
form".

Pepper's ghost

Perceived visual
angle

A motion illusion (1979/1999) generated by the

Peripheral drift
presentation of a sawtooth luminance grating in the visual
illusion
periphery.

Phantograms, also known as Phantaglyphs, Op-Ups,

Phantogram free-standing anaglyphs, levitated images, and book
anaglyphs, are a form of optical illusion.

Phi phenomenon

The Poggendorff illusion (1860) involves the

misperception of the position of one segment of a
Poggendorff illusion
transverse line that has been interrupted by the contour
of an intervening structure (here a rectangle).
Ponzo illusion In the Ponzo illusion (1911) two identical lines across a
pair of converging lines, similar to railway tracks, are
drawn. The upper line looks longer because we interpret
the converging sides according to linear perspective as
parallel lines receding into the distance. In this context,
we interpret the upper line as though it were farther away ,
so we see it as longer – a farther object would have to be
longer than a nearer one for both to produce retinal
images of the same size.

Rubin vase (1915): an ambiguous or bi-stable (i.e.,

Rubin vase
reversing) two-dimensional form.

In Sander's parallelogram(1926) the diagonal line

bisecting the larger, left-hand parallelogram appears to
Sander illusion be considerably longer than the diagonal line bisecting
the smaller, right-hand parallelogram, but is infact the
same length.

Silencing is an illusion in which a set of objects that

Silencing change in luminance, hue, size, or shape appears to stop
changing when it moves.

The size–weight illusion is also known as the

Size–weight illusion
Charpentier illusion (or Charpentier–Koseleff illusion).

Stroboscopic effect

Swept-plane display
The Ternus illusion (1926/1938) is based upon apparent
Ternus illusion
motion.

A thaumatrope is a toy that was popular in Victorian

Thaumatrope
times.

Trompe-l'œil
Troxler's fading: When one fixates on a particular point
for even a short period of time, an unchanging stimulus
Troxler's fading
away from the fixation point will fade away and
disappear.

The Vertical-horizontal illusionis the tendency for

Vertical–horizontal
observers to overestimate the length of a vertical line
illusion
relative to a horizontal line of the same length.

Visual tilt effects

Wagon-wheel effect

White's illusion

The two red vertical lines are both straight, but they may
look as if they are bowed inwards to some observers.
Wundt illusion
The distortion is induced by the crooked lines on the
background

Zoetrope

The Zöllner illusion is a classic optical illusion named

Zöllner illusion after its discoverer, German astrophysicist Johann Karl
Friedrich Zöllner.

See also
Adaptation (eye)
Alice in Wonderland syndrome
Auditory illusion
Camouflage
Contingent perceptual aftereffect
Contour rivalry
Depth perception
Emmert's law
Entoptic phenomenon
Gestalt psychology
Infinity pool
Kinetic depth effect
Mirage
Multistable perception
Op Art

Notes
 1. Penrose, LS; Penrose, R. (1958). "Impossible objects: A special type of optical illusion".
British Journal of
Psychology. 49 (1): 31–33. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1958.tb00634.x(https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fj.2044-8295.1958.t
b00634.x). PMID 13536303 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13536303).

External links
Optical Illusion Examplesby Great Optical Illusions
Optical Illusions & Visual Phenomena by Michael Bach
Optical Illusions Databaseby Mighty Optical Illusions
Optical illusions and perception paradoxesby Archimedes Lab
http://ilusaodeotica.comhundreds of optical illusions
Project LITE Atlas of Visual Phenomena
Akiyoshi's illusion pagesProfessor Akiyoshi KITAOKA's anomalous motion illusions
Spiral Or Not? by Enrique Zeleny, Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Magical Optical Illusionsby Rangki
Hunch Optical Illusionsby Hunch
Optical Illusions by Ooh, My Brain!

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