This optical illusion makes 86% of people look at it like 'falling into a black hole'

If true, that means you're like most people, and your brain even thinks you're entering a tunnel, or falling into a pit, to adjust your eyes accordingly. fit.

When you look at this image, do you see that the black spot in the center is expanding?

As part of a study led by Professor Bruno Laeng of the University of Oslo, a total of 50 adult test subjects with normal vision (31 females, 19 males) were asked to look at an optical illusion. this "expand hole".

These people were shown 26 versions of it, with different color and dot combinations. The simplest combination shown above - with a black spot and dots on a white background - generated the strongest response, with about 86% of participants reporting noticing that the vulnerability was widening.

The reaction occurs no matter where the observer is, even when they are looking at the illusion in a well-lit room where no pupillary adjustment is required. The researchers believe this illusion demonstrates how our brains compensate for the processing time needed to visually perceive the world around us in real time, and that certain involuntary reflexes are not necessarily controlled by physical reality.

The Asahi Illusion.

Another image demonstrating this phenomenon is Akiyoshi Kitaoka's "Asahi" illusion of luminosity. Our brain perceives the white in the middle of the illusion as much brighter than the white around it, when in reality both have the same RGB value and the image brightness is completely uniform. The researchers also found that subjects' pupils would contract when observing this illusion, even if the light in the physical environment they were in did not change.

This illusion is believed to cause a reaction because the brain is trying to protect the retina from sudden glare, which can not only temporarily inhibit our ability to see, but also potentially damage the retina. desert. The center of the Asahi illusion is no brighter than its other white regions, but the arrangement of shapes and gradations from dark to light create a perceptual correlation with walking through a dense forest. surrounded by trees and occasionally caught the bright sunlight through the leaves. Although the observer is not actually at risk of looking at the sun, this is what the brain predicts will happen and the pupils react that way.

In the case of the wormhole illusion, the researchers found that the observers' pupils widened when looking at the image, as their brains were able to perceive they were moving toward a dark space. significantly more than their current environment. The brain compensates first by getting the eyes ready to collect more light. The illusion of a wormhole is moving forward in part thanks to the blurred edges of the black spot, giving the appearance of motion blur. That is why observers see the dark spot growing more and more, like what one would see when walking towards a dark cave.

But, the question is, at any given moment, what we think we're actually seeing might just be an educated guess our brains are making, about what we can see in 100 milliseconds from now. And that, those educated guesses can trigger a physical response unintentionally. What's also fascinating is that only about 86% of the people in the study group had a pupillary dilation response, while the remaining 14% did not. What makes these people different, and does that put them at a disadvantage when navigating the world?

The researchers say the finding could help them better understand the ways in which the human visual system perceives the world around them.

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.