By now we’ve pretty much accepted the fact that our brains are not to be trusted. Time and time again, optical illusions prove that our minds force us to see things that aren’t there and skew images to appear easier on the eyes.
In this latest mind-bending optical illusion, experimental psychologist Akiyoshi Kitaoka asks if you can figure out why the turtles seem to bend inwards. When looking away, the lines seperating the “turtles” in this image look as if they are on an angle, when in fact the patterns are horizontally and vertically aligned.
Patterns are aligned vertically and horizontally, but they appear to bend. Moreover, there appear to be dark-gray turtles and light-gray ones, though they are the same luminance. pic.twitter.com/AMt60y3Sz8
— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@AkiyoshiKitaoka) December 30, 2017
What’s worse, from turtle to turtle, the grey lines also appear to be color lighter and darker than one another. In actuality, the entire image is coloured the same shade of grey.
Another version of the tilt illusion without the lightness illusion pic.twitter.com/Kv2iAImmGx
— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@AkiyoshiKitaoka) December 31, 2017
It’s because of the light/dark inner shadows used on each turtle that cause our eyes brain to think they are different colours. With the lightness and darkness feature removed, you can tell it’s all the same. Crazy right?