Why do optical illusions work?
They work because your brain is wired to see what is essential; not what is real. Here is an amazing optical illusion to present to your brain. I am always astounded when I see it. Look at the picture below. Which square is darker….A or B? If you are like me then the answer seems simple and obvious. Square A. But not so fast. In reality both squares are exactly the same shade! Don’t believe it? Neither did I. Take a look at the next picture. What you are viewing is Adelson’s checker shadow illusion. It is an optical illusion published by Edward H. Adelson, Professor of Vision Science at MIT in 1995. What is especially astonishing about this illusion is that even after your brain knows the squares are the same shade it still experiences them as being different!! So what’s going on here? I always tell people in my live seminars the best definition of learning they will ever hear is that “learning is connecting new information to what you already know”. That’s how your brain works. It c
