Optical illusions pictures for kids
Optical Illusions | Optics for Kids
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What is an Optical Illusion?
Optical Illusions can use color, light and patterns to create images that can be deceptive or misleading to our brains. The information gathered by the eye is processed by the brain, creating a perception that in reality, does not match the true image. Perception refers to the interpretation of what we take in through our eyes. Optical illusions occur because our brain is trying to interpret what we see and make sense of the world around us. Optical illusions simply trick our brains into seeing things which may or may not be real.
Try out some of these illusions and discover just how tricky it can be for your brain to accurately interpret the images from your eyes. Click on any of the images below to begin your exploration of optical illusions.
Moiré
Are the pinwheels moving?
Answer: No, the wheels are not turning. The Moiré effect can produce interesting and beautiful geometric patterns.
Light Bulb
Stare closely at this light bulb for 25 seconds. Then immediately stare at a white wall or sheet of paper. What do you see?
Answer: You should see a glowing light bulb!
Elephant Legs
How many legs do I have?
Answer: Four
Teach
In this illusion you can see the word Teach and its reflection. Can you read the reflection too? What does it say?
Answer: Learn
The Animal
How many animals do you see in the image?
Answer: Look closely, you should be able to see a rabbit and a duck.
The Box and the Sphere
Keep your eyes on the dot. Is it in the front or in the back of the cube?
Ask a friend and see if they agree!
Color Blind
What number do you see in the circle?
Answer: You should be able to see the number 26, but people with various degrees of color blindess may only see the 2 or the 6.
Color Illusion
How many colors are present in the image?
Answer: One shade of green and one shade of red! <br /> <br /> It may look as if the two arms of the "X" use different shades of red, but in face the whole "X" only uses a single shade of red. Likewise, only one shade of green is present throughout the image.
Gradients
Which side of inset bar is darker?
Answer: They are both the same shade!
Hermann Grid Illusion
Count all the black dots you can see
Answer: There are no black dots.
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If you focus directly on each dot, you'll see that all of them are white.
Horizontal Lines
Are the horizontal lines sloping or straight?
Answer: All of the lines are straight.<br /> <br /> The black and white blocks are not aligned and thus fool your brain into thinking that the lines are sloping.
Kanizsa Triangle
How many triangles are present in the image?
Answer: There are no triangles.<br /> <br /> In reality there are only 3 V shapes and 3 shapes that look like Pac-Men.
Muller-Lyer Illusion
Take a very close look at the 2 vertical lines. Do you think one line is longer than the other?
Answer: They are the same size! Hard to believe; get out your ruler to measure the lines and see for yourself!
My Wife and My Mother-in-Law
How many figures can you see in the image below?
Answer: If you look closely, you can see both a young and an elderly woman.
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The picture, My Wife and My Mother-in-Law, is a good example of two images existing in one, and was published in 1915 by the cartoonist W.E. Hill.
Snakes
Are the circles moving in the image?
Answer: Look closely, they aren't moving.
Zollner Illusion
Do you think these lines are parallel?
Answer: They are parallel!
Refraction Illusion
Are both arrows pointing the same direction on the paper behind the glass?
Yes! This illusion demonstrations <a href="~/what-is-optics/refraction/">refraction</a>, the bending of light.
11 Optical illusions for kids
Optical Illusions for kids play with the way an object appears, through the use of colour, light, images and patterns to manipulate what our brains are perceiving.
why do we see them?
Our visual system has limits in tackling all the information our eyes take in.
So our minds take shortcuts and our brain constantly chooses the most likely interpretation of what we see.
Check out some interesting optical illusions for kids below and let us know which one you liked best.
HOOT HOOT
They say that some of the greatest moments in life are unplanned.
What we see is the face of a mysterious owl staring back from the cup of a mans morning coffee.
What it really is? This optical illusion was created, as a result of two Hula Hoops (potato snacks) being dropped into the mug.
Read more.
MOVING SQUARES
Scroll this picture up and down and the squares will move.
How does this happen? One theory is that when you move your head back and forth, the alternating dark and light patterns can seem to cause the perception of movement.
Read more.
My Wife and My Mother-in-Law
The illusion is considered to be one of the most famous optical illusions in the world (dating back to 1915).
Some people see a young lady with her head turned towards the background while others see an elderly woman’s side profile.
What do you see? It’s almost impossible to see both at the same time!
Australian researchers asked 393 participants aged 18 to 68 to tell them who they saw in the optical illusion. The results, published in the August 2018 issue of Scientific Reports showed that the youngest set of people tended to see the wife first, while the oldest set of participants tended to see the mother-in-law first.
Read more.
Lightbulb magic
All you need to do is stare closely at this light bulb for 25 seconds.
Then immediately stare at a white wall or sheet of paper.
What do you see?
You should see a glowing light bulb!
SOULMATES
When you look at this image, what colour are the left and right hearts?
Well, The hearts are actually the same colour, it is the lines over them that are of different colours.
Image source.
SPINNING DANCER
Is the lady spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise? You may even see the figure suddenly spin in the opposite direction if you look closely.
Did you know this figurine is used to determine whether or not people are right-brain (creative) or left-brain (logical) dominant?
Viewers are told that if they view the dancer as standing on her left leg and spinning clockwise, then they are right-brain dominant (creative), and if they see the reverse (the dancer standing on her right leg and spinning counter-clockwise), then they are left-brain dominant (logical).
Read more.
So how does it work? It has to do with our visual cues and bistable perception. This occurs when visual cues are ambiguous and our brain tries to make sense of it.
A path between rice fields
A work by Japanese artist Makoto Aida titled AZEMICHI.
This photograph shows a young Japanese schoolgirl standing between two rice fields.
The painting creates an optical illusion with the little girl’s parted hairline as it merges with the divide between the rice fields.
Read more.
Are you colourblind?
What number do you see in the circle?
Answer: You should be able to see the number 74, but people with red-green colour blindness see a 21. Those with total colour blindness see nothing.
For more colour blind test click here.
Direction confusion
Are both arrows pointing the same direction on the paper behind the glass?
What is happening? This image showcases the effects of refraction (the bending of light).
Read more.
DANCING DOG
Timing is everything.
Tell that to the man, busy reading his morning news.
I guess, “Dreams”, really do come true, doesn’t it?
Image source.
SPOT THE PREDATOR
In this image try finding the predator.
Then scroll down to the coloured version of the same image, and try again.
Why is it so easy this time? The reason is that the second image shows the surfaces according to the quality of light they reflect (not just their intensity), while in the first image you are only seeing the surfaces according to the amount of light they reflect.
In other words, your brain has a lot more information for making its decisions.
Read more.
If you liked our curated set of Optical Illusions for kids and are keen to learn more about Optics, join us now to receive an “Optics” box for your child next month. Sign up for our VIP Adventure to receive the first two boxes at HALF PRICE for $19/month. Join here.
Extra reading: check out our posts on 11 places to visit for your next science expedition and our blog on 11 best science fiction books for kids.
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Illusion is an optical illusion.
Types of optical illusion:
optical illusion based on color perception;
optical illusion based on contrast;
warp illusions;
optical illusion of depth perception;
optical illusion of size perception;
contour optical illusion;
optical illusion "changeling";
Ames room;
moving optical illusions.
stereo illusions, or, as they are also called: "3d pictures", stereo pictures.
ILLUSION OF BALL SIZE
Isn't it true that the size of these two balls is different? Is the top ball bigger than the bottom one?
In fact, this is an optical illusion: these two balls are absolutely equal. You can use the ruler to check. By creating the effect of a receding corridor, the artist managed to deceive our vision: the upper ball seems larger to us, because. our consciousness perceives it as a more distant object.
ILLUSION OF A.EINSTEIN AND M.MONROE
If you look at the picture from a close distance, you see the genius physicist A.
Einstein.
Now try to move a few meters away, and ... a miracle, in the picture M. Monroe. Here everything seems to be done without optical illusion. But how?! No one painted on mustaches, eyes, hair. It’s just that from afar, vision does not perceive any little things, but it puts more emphasis on large details.
Invisible chair
The optical effect, which gives the viewer a false impression of the location of the seat, is due to the original design of the chair, invented by the French studio Ibride.
Look at the cross in the center
Peripheral vision turns pretty faces into monsters.
Ferris wheel
In which direction does the wheel spin?
Hypnosis
Stare without blinking at the middle of an image for 20 seconds and then look at someone's face or just a wall.
WINDOW SIDE ILLUSION
Which side of the building is the window on? On the left or maybe on the right?
Once again our vision was deceived. How did this become possible? It is very simple: the upper part of the window is shown as a window located on the right side of the building (we look, as it were, from below), and the lower part is on the left (we look from above). And vision perceives the middle, as consciousness considers it necessary. That's all deception.
Bar illusion
Take a look at these bars. Depending on which end you are looking at, the two pieces of wood will either be next to each other, or one of them will lie on top of the other.
Cube and two identical cups
An optical illusion created by Chris Westall. There is a cup on the table, next to which there is a cube with a small cup. However, upon closer inspection, we can see that in fact the cube is drawn, and the cups are exactly the same size.
A similar effect is noticed only at a certain angle.
Cafe Wall Illusion
Look closely at the image. At first glance, it seems that all the lines are curved, but in fact they are parallel. The illusion was discovered by R. Gregory at the Wall Cafe in Bristol. That's where its name came from.
Illusion of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
Above you see two pictures of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At first glance it looks like the tower on the right is leaning more than the one on the left, but the two pictures are actually the same. The reason lies in the fact that the visual system considers two images as part of a single scene. Therefore, it seems to us that both photographs are not symmetrical.
WAVY LINE ILLUSION
There is no doubt that the lines depicted are wavy.
Remember the name of the section - optical illusion. You're right, they are straight, parallel lines.
And it's a twisting illusion.
Ship or arch?
This illusion is a true work of art. The picture was painted by Rob Gonsalves, a Canadian artist, a representative of the magical realism genre. Depending on where you look, you can either see the arch of a long bridge or the sail of a ship.
ILLUSION - GRAFFITI "LADDER"
Now you can relax and not think that there will be another optical illusion. Let's admire the imagination of the artist.
Such a graffiti was made by a miracle artist in the subway to the surprise of all passers-by.
NEZELLE EFFECT
Look at the picture and say which part of the red lines is brighter and more contrasting. On the right, right?
In fact, the red lines in the picture are no different from each other. They are absolutely identical, again an optical illusion. This is the Bezoldi effect, when we perceive the tonality of a color differently depending on its proximity to other colors.
COLOR CHANGE ILLUSION
Does the color of the horizontal gray line change into a rectangle?
The horizontal line in the picture does not change throughout and remains the same gray. Can't believe it, right? This is an optical illusion. To verify this, cover the rectangle surrounding it with a piece of paper.
REDUCING SUN ILLUSION
This stunning photograph of the sun was taken by the American space agency NASA. It shows two sunspots pointing directly at the Earth.
Something else is much more interesting. If you look around the edge of the Sun, you will see how it shrinks. This is really GREAT - no cheating, good illusion!
ZOLNER'S ILLUSION
Can you see that the Christmas tree lines in the picture are parallel?
I don't see either. But they are parallel - check with a ruler. My vision was also deceived. This is the famous classical Zolner illusion, which has existed since the 19th century.
Because of the "needles" on the lines, it seems to us that they are not parallel.
ILLUSION-JESUS CHRIST
Look at the picture for 30 seconds (or more may be needed), then look at a bright, even surface, such as a wall.
Before your eyes you saw the image of Jesus Christ, the image is similar to the famous Shroud of Turin. Why does this effect occur? The human eye contains cells called rods and cones. The cones are responsible for transmitting a color image to the human brain under good illumination, and the rods help a person see in the dark and are responsible for transmitting a low-definition black and white image. When you look at a black and white image of Jesus, the sticks get "tired" due to long and intense work. When you look away from the image, these “tired” cells can’t cope and can’t transmit new information to the brain. Therefore, the image remains before the eyes, and disappears when the sticks "come to their senses."
ILLUSION.
THREE SQUARE
Sit closer and look at the picture. Do you see that the sides of all three squares are crooked?
I also see curved lines, despite the fact that the sides of all three squares are perfectly even. When you move away from the monitor at some distance, everything falls into place - the square looks perfect. This is because the background makes our brain perceive lines as curves. This is an optical illusion. When the background merges and we do not see it clearly, the square appears to be even.
ILLUSION. BLACK FIGURES
What do you see in the picture?
This is a classic illusion. Throwing a cursory glance, we see some incomprehensible figures. But after looking a little longer, we begin to distinguish the word LIFT. Our consciousness is accustomed to seeing black letters on a white background, and continues to perceive this word as well. It is very unexpected for our brain to read white letters on a black background.
In addition, most people first look at the center of the picture, and this further complicates the task of the brain, because it is used to reading the word from left to right.
ILLUSION. OUCHI ILLUSION
Look at the center of the picture and you will see a "dancing" ball.
This is an iconic optical illusion invented in 1973 by Japanese artist Ouchi and named after him. There are several illusions in this picture. First, it looks like the ball is moving slightly from side to side. Our brain cannot understand that this is a flat image and perceives it as three-dimensional. Another deception of the Ouchi illusion is the impression that we are looking through a round keyhole at a wall. Finally, the size of all the rectangles in the picture is the same, and they are arranged strictly in rows without apparent displacement.
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ILLUSION.
ILLUSION OF THE COLOR OF THE WORD
Say quickly and without thinking, the color of the letters in which the words below are written:
To some extent, this is not an optical illusion, but a puzzle. It is really difficult to name the color of a word, because of the conflict that occurs between the left and right hemisphere. The right half tries to say the color, and the left half reads the word intensely, because of this, confusion arises in our minds.
ILLUSION-GREEN SHADES
You have already guessed that the picture shows not two shades of green, but the same green color.
And you can already explain this optical illusion yourself – the brain perceives them as different shades due to the contrast of the colors next to them. To check this, it is enough just to cover the environment with a sheet of paper.
PICTURE ILLUSION. SHINING TUNNEL
There will be no optical illusion here. To appreciate this illusion, you need to look at the center of the ball for some time.
The picture will show itself in a few seconds. You will be able to see the tunnel start flashing, some will see stronger "flashes". The flickering illusion in this picture is related to the black and white vision of the eye. As you know, special cells - sticks - are responsible for it. In the case of their "overvoltage", these cells "get tired" and we see such an illusion.
PICTURE ILLUSION. SEA WAVES ON THE PLANE
Look at the picture and you will see the illusion of a wave, as if the image came to life. To enhance the effect, you can move your head or eyes around.
This illusion is related to the different colors (white and pink) of the intermediate links between the peas. The white color is seen clearly and brightly, but the pink color, when you do not look closely at it, merges with green and becomes difficult to distinguish. And in the picture there is an illusion that the distance between the peas is changing.
PICTURE ILLUSION. SPIRAL GOING TO INFINITY
You will ask: “Well, what is the illusion behind this picture? Ordinary spiral»
In fact, this is an unusual spiral, and it is not a spiral at all. This is an optical illusion! The picture shows the usual completed circles, and the blue lines create the illusion of a spiral due to the swirling effect.
PICTURE ILLUSION. GOBLET OF WINE
What do you see in this picture? What is the illusion here?
If, in addition to the goblet of wine, you can see two faces looking at each other in the “legs” of the goblet, you can be congratulated!
PICTURE ILLUSION. WAVY SIDES OF SQUARE
Try and guess what kind of illusion is hidden in this picture.
If you see the wavy lines of the sides of the squares, it's not surprising, because it's an illusion! Using a ruler, you can determine that the sides of the squares are straight and even.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. HIGH HAT
Estimate the height of the hat and its width and answer the question: "Are the segments AB and CD equal?"
I really liked this optical illusion. It's incredible, but the height and width of the hat are exactly the same, i.e. segment AB is equal to CD. Due to the fact that the edges of the hat are bent on the sides, and the person's face, on the contrary, is elongated, an optical illusion is created that the height of the hat is greater than the width. This can be explained by the fact that our brain takes into account the size of the surrounding objects. If you measure the segments with a ruler or simply cover the person's face with a sheet of paper, the optical illusion will disappear.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. GRAY DIAMONDS
Are all gray diamonds the same color? Isn't it true that the lower layers of rhombuses are lighter than the upper ones?
The color of all diamonds is exactly the same.
This optical illusion can again be explained by the environment. Our brain compares objects with the environment, and an optical illusion occurs.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. A GIANT CHASSING A Dwarf
Do you think the giant will catch up with the dwarf?
I will not give an answer to this question. But I know for sure that “fear has big eyes” and that these two figures are exactly the same. Our consciousness has been caught in an optical illusion, due to the corridor going into the distance, it perceives that the distant figure should be smaller.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. BLACK AND WHITE DOTS
It's a fairly simple task to count the number of black dots in a picture.
The correct answer is 0. There are no black dots in the picture, all dots are white. Our peripheral vision perceives them as black. Because with lateral vision, there is a shift in the picture, but when we look at the same point directly, the optical illusion disappears.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. HORIZONTAL LINES
Can you see the horizontal lines in the picture?
In fact, all lines are not only parallel to each other, but are also horizontal. You can use the ruler to check.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. SPIRAL
Is it a spiral? Is not it?
Take a closer look and you will see an optical illusion, in fact, these are even circles. But due to the geometric pattern and selected colors, the illusion of shifting the lines of circles arises in consciousness.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. PINK LINES
The picture shows pink lines crossing each other diagonally. Different shade, right?
In fact, the pink lines are completely identical to each other, it is the same shade of pink. This optical illusion is based on the contrast of colors surrounding the pink lines.
OPTICAL ILLUSION. LADDER
I ask you to answer the question: "Where does the staircase lead, up or down?"
The correct answer depends on which side you look at.
