Illusions > Motion

This is a great illusion ! Look at the black dot in the middle and move you head forward and backward. You will see both circles rotating in different directions ! How does it work ? If you move further away, the circles will become smaller for you. This means, from your point of view, every symbol moves inwards, and their slanted edge give the impression of circumferential motion. If the edges are not slanted enough, the illusion doesn't work near as good.

When you keep looking at the picture, it seems to be moving before your eyes. That's because the lens of you eye is not perfectly round. You can't see all of the picture sharp, and your eye is constantly making small movements. When you follow the outer rim, you will see that it is impossible.

Is the wheel turning to the right or the left ? When you look at the left, it seems to be turning left, when you look to the right, . . . In fact this animation has only two frames, this means there are only two different positions for the wheel. The wheel is not turning at all ; your imagination is filling in the gaps !

This one is really great, try it : look just above or below the circle, keep looking forward and move your head to the left and the right. It's like the background in the circle is moving !

You won't believe your eyes, how these snakes are turning, squirming, rotating. Sit down, take an aspirin and click on the thumbnail . . .

It's impossible to believe these a two perfectly concentric circles. Wherever you look, there always seems to be something wrong.

This effect is based on the lazyness of the movement receptors in the eye. Click on the thumbnail to show the full picture. Stare at the middle of the animation for 20 seconds and then look at someone's face or the back of your hand . . .

The blurred disc in the middle seems to fluctuate, and to float above the background.

What can I say ... Click on the picture and see for yourself ...

It's like there are three rivers flowing on this picture. That's caused by afterimages on your eyes while they are looking all over it.

If you let your eyes wander over the picture, it seems to pop in and out.

A smart billboard for the Sony Bravia TV. The marketing guys want to tell you the colors become alive, and boy, do they ! You can hardly keep looking at this image without becoming seasick. If only more billboards would be like this.

Look around on this image and see how incredible the effect is. You computer screen will seem to be waving and rippling like the ocean.

Part of an advertising campaign in Argentina, this illusion is based on work by A. Kitakoa (see elsewhere on this site). On original way to bring the message "vibrant colors" to the viewer.