New ‘Starburst’ Illusion Bamboozles You Into Seeing Light Rays That Don’t Exist
Video screenshot via Recursia Studios (CC BY 4.0)
If you have had trouble seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, a brand-new optical illusion might be the visual metaphor you need. Designed by Michael Karlovich, visual artist at Recursia Studios; and Pascal Wallisch, a New York University psychology researcher; the ‘Scintillating Starburst’ visual tricks you into seeing rays of light that aren’t there.
The animation seems to radiate fleeting rays from the middle, “akin to seeing the sun breaking through the clouds,” describes Wallisch in a blog post.
While the “wreaths” of scaled star polygons are uniformly colored, your brain will somehow perceive the intersection points as more vibrant than other parts of the graphic. “As these ‘beacons’ of brightness are aligned in a linear fashion… we believe the brain is connecting the dots accordingly, which is why most people see these illusory rays,” Wallisch elaborates.
The optical illusion’s psychedelic hold isn’t just fooling one area of your visual system, but it also “evokes a number of newly discovered effects,” says NYU, which makes things even trippier.
A second part of the visual system—the area that processes information within the gaze—brings your perception back to Earth, as it understands that the intersection points aren’t any brighter than the rest of the animation. But that triggers yet another illusion; it causes the graphic to “shimmer” or “scintillate,” creating the appearance of fleeting rays.
To portray the illusion in another light, pardon the pun, the team has reimagined it in varied color schemes and seeming luminosities. The study was published this week in the i-Perception journal.
[via CNET, video and cover image via Recursia Studios (CC BY 4.0)]
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