Optical Illusions That Rocked Social Media and Confounded Our Brains

Red Strawberry

One of the recent optical illusions that was turned into an internet sensation is a strawberry tart. The strawberries appear red in color despite the fact that there are no red pixels in the photo. That is, this color is exclusively in our mind which by itself “corrects” the image and our eyes perceive it as red. Yes, we were baffled by it, too!

​Olivia Wilde and baby Daisy

At first glance this is just a pretty photo of the star of “Doctor House” and her little daughter Daisy. Then suddenly you see the “giant baby hand” of Daisy. The hand obviously belongs to the actress herself; however, for a few seconds they got us!

Movie stars and a cross

Even the hottest celebrities turn into caricatures of themselves because of this optical illusion. Focus on the cross between the portraits. What do you see?

​Missing pair of legs

How many girls do you see in this photo? Well done, six. And how many pairs of legs? The social media users really enjoyed this illusion as many jokes were made about the missing pair of legs. Some “reasonable” explanations included that the legs had been eaten by the sofa!

According to some users the only possible explanation is that the two girls sitting to the left are wearing a similar shade of dark jeans.

​Lake or no lake?

It's nice sometimes to contemplate life on the edge of a lake in a forest. More unusual, but nevertheless pleasant, is to lie on an uprooted tree and look up at the sky. This optical illusion requires you turn your head to one side to immediately understand what is going on.

​The Ames Room

The oldest of all the optical illusions on this list is the Ames room, which was created by the American ophthalmologist Albert Ames in 1934-1935.

From the outside it looks like an ordinary room, but in fact it is an irregularly shaped room: the walls, floor and ceiling are inclined and the right angle is closer to the viewer than the left one. Due to that, it seems that the person standing on the right side is a giant and the one who is on the left is a dwarf.

​Man’s face in coffee beans

In this optical illusion you must try and find a man’s face in the coffee beans. For some people it is a matter of just a few seconds, whereas for others it may take longer.

In any case, don’t give up, as this optical illusion is a test of one’s observation skill.

​What color is the dress?

Probably, it was with this “dress of discord” that real hysteria around optical illusions began. Is the dress blue and black, or white and gold?

The owner of the dress eventually said that the correct answer is the first one, but some people who saw it as the second version were still not convinced. The answer, however, lies in the imperfection of our eyes and the inability of the brain to cope with the adjustment of color.

​Enter cartoon land

A sculpture in New Zealand is made to look like a cartoon. A well-known New Zealand sculptor, Neil Dawson, designed it. From afar the sculpture looks like a giant painted piece of paper put up on a hill. However, once you approach it, it becomes clear that this sculpture is actually made out of metal.

​Train speeding in both directions

So you see a train speeding away in one direction, right? Now just imagine that it is going into the other direction. What do you see?