Jun 30, 2021 14:00:00

A new optical illusion is reported in which rays that should not exist can be seen

The visual illusion that the colors should be the same

but look different is called an 'optical illusion.' Various geometrical illusions have been reported so far, but the existence of 'geometry that seems to emit light rays' has been newly announced.

A New Kind of Visual Illusion Uncovers How Our Brains Connect the Dots
https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2021/june/a-new-kind-of-visual-illusion-uncovers-how-our-brains-connect-th.html

Scintillating Starbursts: Concentric Star Polygons Induce Illusory Ray Patterns --Michael W. Karlovich, Pascal Wallisch, 2021
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20416695211018720

A new type of optical illusion tricks the brain into seeing dazzling rays | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/scintillating-starburst-illusion.html

The new illusion was created by Michael Karlovich , CEO of a design company and a background as a neuroscientist. Karlovich designed the logo for a company called 'Recursia' that he launched himself, and this logo has been reported as an example of a new optical illusion.

Below is the Recursia logo. The design is a stack of heptagons, but it looks as if the light is shining from the center. The form of the logo is 'Scintillating Starburst (sparkling starburst was named)'.

'When I noticed the optical illusion, I foresaw that I was seeing an effect I had never seen before. This was a pleasant surprise, but I was confused about the underlying mechanism,' Karlovich said. Says.

To find out why the optical illusion occurs, Karlovich

worked with Pascal Wallisch at New York University to experiment with more than 100 people using Scintillating Starburst. In the experiment, 162 types of scintillating starburst with various shapes, luster, and complexity were created and used.

When I asked the subject, 'Can you see something like a beam or a streak of light?', In order to see the streak of light with Scintillating Starburst, some conditions such as size, contrast, and line thickness are required. It turned out to be. On the other hand, it seems that the line and background color have nothing to do with it.

The intersection of the heptagons is the thinnest part of the wreath, and if there is some contrast, a 'ray' will appear that connects the thin parts. At this time, the research team states that the stronger the contrast, the stronger the rays appear.

A similar illusion is the Hermann grid illusion. This is a phenomenon in which when black squares are lined up, dots can be seen between the corners of the squares. However, the optical illusion of light rays instead of dots has not been reported so far.

'Like any other optical illusion, scintillating starburst can stimulate future research on cognition and vision,' Karlovich said.