Decoding the illusion painting The cat on the stairs causes a fever

Is the photo of the cat on the stairs a visual illusion that caused a storm like what happened to a dark blue dress - white gold?

Illusion "The cat on the stairs"

Not long ago, the world public opinion fevered just because of the endless debate about the color of a dress on social networks. Black or white gold is the most hot keyword at the time.

And it seems that the same thing is repeating when recently, a new photo spread on popular websites like 9gag, Facebook . has caused a new debate. It is a picture of a cat walking on the stairs . The strange thing is that, when looking at the photo, some people will think the cat is climbing up but some people claim 100% of the cat crawls down.

According to you, the cat goes up or down?

So what is the scientific truth behind this story, let's find out later.

Up to this point, no scientist has come up with an accurate explanation of this picture.Giving a sure answer that the cat climbs or crawls down on the photograph is hard to be sure.

The reason is that the image on the internet has not high image quality . Elements around the cat like stairs, walls or floors behind are blurry and broken. Many people believe that this is a photoshop photos, so relying on it is not entirely accurate.

From the perspective of visual science, we can put the image in the form of visual illusion . Accordingly, the nature of this phenomenon is that when the information gathered from the eye does not provide enough for the brain to recognize the object, the brain will " predict" it first to make the image reasonable. . This is also when we are fooled by illusions.

Is the cat on the staircase affordable version 2.0 of this legendary dress?

In the above case, if you just glance at the photo, each person will have a personal feeling : either the cat goes up, or the cat goes down. Or you can see that the cat went up or the cat went down.

The reason is, the image has a two-dimensional perspective between the walls - the staircase, making the human brain "confused" and seeing that the cat going up or down is the right image.

Another good example is also related to the stairs, we can follow through the picture below.

Clearly in the picture, we will see a paradox . Along one way on the ladder, the man on the right went up and the man on the left went down. Just like the cat above, this is a visual illusion or in other words, a phenomenon of excessive brain intelligence and self-deception.

The pictures above are inspired by one of the most famous illusions in history : Schroeder's ladder . This illusion was published in 1858 by expert Heindrich GF Schroeder, essentially a two-dimensional image of a normal ladder. However, when you look at it for about 7 - 12.5 seconds, you have a chance to see that ladder change position and direction.

Simulate the famous Schroeder ladder photo virtual!

Going back to the story of the cat, he is going up or down the stairs? Please express your thoughts by commenting below!