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Bizzle had a hard day, what with people telling him he has the face of a dog and all. So he came home and treated himself to a snack of Dunkaroos. This trick has been done a lot, but rarely this well. -via reddit
Urban artist Aakash Nihalani (previously at Neatorama) sent us a sneak peek at some of his illusory street art featured in a solo exhibit in Delhi, India. Click “more” to see, well, more.
You know how people sometimes put a quarter into a picture with another object to show its size? What if you had a really, really big coin for that purpose? The Norwegian design studio Skrekkøgle makes (and sells) giant coins so that you can make everyday objects look like miniatures! Link | Artist’s site -via reddit
Hang this illusion plaque in your home and just go about your business. Sooner or later, a guest will freak out, and you’ll have a laugh that’s well worth the $30 this artwork cost. Designed by Brooklyn artist Dan Witz. Also available in human and Tazmanian Devil. Link -via Dangerous Minds
I know you are familiar with this picture of workers on the Brooklyn Bridge, taken in 1914 by Eugene de Salignac for the city of New York. But wait… why is the guy on the right so much bigger than the others? He’s not. Rob at the What Is It? Blog altered the picture to make it an optical illusion!
A few weeks ago I saw this old picture on the web of the Brooklyn Bridge painters and thought it was perfect for the classic perspective optical illusion, I made an exact copy of the person on the left of the photo and placed it on the right.
Pretty neat, wouldn’t you say? -Thanks, Rob!
Mind Your Step is an art installation in Stockholm, Sweden by artist Erik Johansson (previously at Neatorama). You know it’s an illusion, but you still cringe just a little as people walk right into the abyss. -via Geeks Are Sexy
The illusion comprises a morphing sequence between two faces. The observer has to fixate a dot superimposed on the morph. When the dot is moving, morphing can hardly be seen. However, when the dot suddenly stops, the morphing appears surprisingly strong. Subtle differences in, e.g., the shape of the eyes, the color of the skin, and even gender characteristics are ‘blown-up’ perceptually. Apparently, such differences between faces are easily overlooked when following a moving-dot, but are highly salient when our eyes rest at a single point on the morphing faces.
This illusion by Rob van Lier and Arno Koning is one of the ten finalists in the Best Illusion of the Year 2011 contest. See them all at the contest site. Link
Remember the video of the impossible waterfall? Even after you saw how it was done, you were still impressed. Now Instructables has step-by-step instructions for you to make your own 3D version of the famous illusion! It’s not exactly simple, but it can be done. And if you can pull it off, you’ll flummox everyone who sees it. Link -via Boing Boing
Designer John Leung from ClarkeHopkinsClarke Architects presents the “Bias of Thoughts” Bookshelf. How does this illusion work? You can figure it out by seeing pictures of the bookshelf from different angles and a video as well at the Neatorama Spotlight Blog. Link
Did you know you can get wallpaper that makes a room look like it’s full of books? I thought, “Neat.” Then I saw that there are many patterns of these wallpapers, some more convincing than others. The room pictured has no bookshelf -just wallpaper. See a half-dozen of these patterns at Remodelista Daily. Link -via Everlasting Blort
In the western Greenland coast town of Ilulissat, the sun is scheduled to rise on January 13th after six weeks of darkness. But this year, sunlight was seen coming over the horizon on Monday afternoon- two full days early!
The mysterious sunrise has confused scientists, although it is believed the most likely explanation is that it is down to the lower height of melting icecaps allowing the sun’s light to penetrate through earlier.
Thomas Posch, of the Institute for Astronomy of the University of Vienna, said that a local change of the horizon was ‘by far the most obvious explanation’.
He said as the ice sinks, so to does the horizon, creating the illusion that the sun has risen early.
So the anomaly apparently has nothing to do with the changing zodiac signs. That’s a relief! Link -via The Daily What
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The Photo of the Day at National Geographic is a snorkeler in Thailand -or is it a reverse mermaid? The photograph was submitted to My Shot by Nick Kelly. Link -Thanks, Marilyn!
Take a look at this photograph from the early 20th century. It has not been retouched, nor is it a double exposure. It looks like a big face has been plopped into the middle of it, an example of pareidolia {wiki}, the tendency for human brains to interpret patterns as meaningful, like seeing a face when there is no face. For an explanation of what this photo really is, see the post at Historic LOLs. Link
Update: Commenter MosselKots has images spelling out both ways of looking at this picture, in case that will help you see it. Link
The old parlor trick of staring at yourself in a mirror until your face starts to change has now been studied scientifically. Giovanni Caputo led a study in which 50 people tried the trick and reported their reactions.
At the end of a 10 min session of mirror gazing, the participant was asked to write what he or she saw in the mirror. The descriptions differed greatly across individuals and included: (a) huge deformations of one’s own face (reported by 66% of the fifty participants); (b) a parent’s face with traits changed (18%), of whom 8% were still alive and 10% were deceased; (c) an unknown person (28%); (d) an archetypal face, such as that of an old woman, a child, or a portrait of an ancestor (28%); (e) an animal face such as that of a cat, pig, or lion (18%); (f ) fantastical and monstrous beings (48%).
Have you ever tried this? The effect can be really creepy, like this video example from Lasse Gjertsen (in Norwegain, but may sound NSFW). The entire article is available as a pdf, or you can read a summary at Mind Hacks. Link -via Metafilter
When you see the moon rising or setting over the landscape, it seems so big and close that you could reach out and touch it. Then a couple of hours later when it’s high in the sky, it seems so much smaller! Why does the moon look so huge on the horizon? The moon stays the same, but your brain experiences an optical illusion.
One of my favorite brain-benders is the Ponzo Illusion. You’ve seen it: the simplest case is with two short horizontal lines, one above the other, between two slanting but near-vertical lines. The upper line looks longer than the lower line, even though they’re the same length.
The illusion works because our brains are a bit wonky. The slanted lines make us think that anything near the top is farther away; the lines force our brain to think those lines are parallel but receding in the distance (like railroad tracks). The two horizontal lines are physically the same length, but our brain thinks the upper one is farther away. If it’s farther away, then duh, our brain says to itself, it must be bigger than the lower one. So we perceive it that way.
See examples of how this works at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link
This cardboard sculpture by Koukichi Sugihara of the Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences in Japan won the first prize at the 2010 Illusion of the Year competition. This one is all the more remarkable in that it is a solid object when most entries were computer-generated. See the top ten finalists from the competition, and marvel at what your brain will make you see. Link -via The Loom
When you chew a piece of mint gum and then take a drink, the drink seems colder than it would otherwise. It’s not colder, that’s an illusion from your brain and a protein called TRPM8.
TRPM8 doesn’t just respond to cold temperatures, though. It also activates in the presence of menthol, a waxy, crystalline organic compound found in peppermint and other mint oils. (It responds to other “cooling agents,” too, like eucalyptol and icilin. Why, exactly, is unknown; menthol just happens to fit the cellular “lock.”)
Read about how this works at mental_floss. Link
Why would someone post a video of a painting? Because you need to see it in three dimensions to get the full effect.
This is a movie of a super-cool “painting” hanging in the basement of the British Library, in London. The author has done many such paintings, but this is the best (and all the others are very similar). It’s called “Paradoxymoron”, by Patrick Hughes
Mural artist Eric Grohe is a master of Tromp l’oeil, the art of illusion. Believe it or not, the right side of the building shown is completely flat!
He believes that his art should involve, challenge and inspire the viewer; not simply adorn, but integrate with its architectural surroundings. Works of the size and scope that Mr. Grohe creates take months to complete as attention must be given to every detail, no matter how small.
Link to story. Link to artist’s website.
From the Upcoming 
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Diver Anatoly Beloshchin shot this footage in an underwater cavern at Cenote Angelita, Mexico. The illusion of a river is most commonly attributed to a layer of hydrogen sulfide.
A team led by psychologist Martin Doherty of the University of Stirling in Scotland found that visual illusions that befuddle adults don’t effect children as easily. The pair of orange circles in the above illusion are slightly different in size. The blue dots will either accentuate those differences, or mislead the eye into thinking they are bigger or smaller than they are. In an experiment, participants of different ages were asked to identify the circle that looked bigger.
For 4- to 6-year-olds, accuracy of size perception for misleading images remained at about what it was for control images. Misleading images increasingly elicited errors from older children and tricked adults most of the time. Adults made almost no errors on helpful images. Kids from age 7 to 10 erred on a minority of helpful images, while 4- to 6-year-olds performed no better than chance.
The results suggest that considering context in images is something we learn as we age. Link
Although this wood sculpture looks basic enough, it’s actually quite remarkable. You see, artist Ron van der Ende creates works like this out of found wood – and makes bas relief sculptures. So while you’re correct in deducing the width and height, the depth is only a few centimeters.
Inspired by working in his father’s woodshop as a young man, Ron went to art school where he studied painting. Dissatisfied and longing for working with wood again, he opted for sculpting, and soon found a knack for off-beat bas relief.
I collect old doors and stuff. Old painted wood that I find in the street. I take it apart and skin it to obtain a 3mm thick veneer with the old paint layers still intact. I construct bas-reliefs that I cover with these veneers much like a constructed mosaic. I do not paint them!
This one took me a while just to figure out what I was looking at!
Link to Interview on diskursdisko. Ron’s website. via The Donut Project.
Here’s a fine and seasonally-appropriate example of the Hollow Face Illusion, created by Tony Bailey. Also in this category, Three Figurines is not to be missed!
It’s the classic shell game, with a neat twist that may surprise you!
CHOP CUP from :weareom: on Vimeo.
via UniqueDaily
Love, love, love this Illusion side table by designer John Brauer of Essey – the table is handmade from acrylic to look like a draped tablecloth! Design Year Book has more pics: Link – via FreshBump
