How the flip does this optical illusion work?

[OwlHoot]

https://twitter.com/gunsnrosesgirl3/...10831867105284

The cubes don't actually move at all, but appear to drift and rotate!

The effect is the same if one covers the direction arrows with a finger. So it isn't a case of them tricking the brain by suggestion.

Ditto if one entire cube is covered or one eye watching them. So it can't be some stereo effect.

I can only assume there are minute delays, of the order of 1/20th second, in the relative timing of the flashing sides. But how would that account for rotations?

[xoggoth]

Really weird! Laid random progs over top to check they are not moving. If one could take a video and slow it down would see how the edges are scrolling.

[Fraidycat]

The black and white flashing animation of the lines is different for each illusion. How they differ is hard to tell

[OwlHoot]

The black and white flashing animation of the lines is different for each illusion. How they differ is hard to tell

That must be right, no question. But as Xog says one would have to slow down the video to see what is going on.

I suspect there is a tiny time lag in brightness levels rippling down suitable combinations of sides.

[BlasterBates]

You can stop it randomly for each section of the frame it is either black with a thin white stripe on one side or white with a thin black stripe on the same side. The second cube has the thin stripe on the opposite side.

It seems to be strobing the split colours on the frame gives the illusion of movement.

[mattster]

That's a good one.
I always like the colour shading illusions as well - however hard you look, I find it
impossible to reconcile. Here's a simple example - you can just cover the gap between the two sides to see that they are both identical shades of grey:



This dog one is even harder to reconcile, for me at least (they're the same, of course):


This is the famous one:

[NotAllThere]

There's one experiment I've read of where they move a dot across a screen rapidly, left to right. They change the colour just before it reaches the right, and if the speed is right the brain simply decides that the colour changed half way along.

The point is that our eyes see nothing. All the work is done in our brains, which attempt to make a coherent picture - our brains don't attempt to show reality.

[mattster]

There's one experiment I've read of where they move a dot across a screen rapidly, left to right. They change the colour just before it reaches the right, and if the speed is right the brain simply decides that the colour changed half way along.

The point is that our eyes see nothing. All the work is done in our brains, which attempt to make a coherent picture - our brains don't attempt to show reality.

Yes - our perception of reality is merely a guided hallucination, or something like that..