109 Photos That Trick Your Eyes In The Most Unexpected Ways

When you’re looking at an optical illusion, how long does it take you to figure out what’s really happening in the picture? You can try it and time yourself as you scroll through these photographs. Yet, according to science, our brains are pretty quick at deciphering pictures with confusing perspectives and optical illusions.

Well, not our brains by themselves: it would be fairer to begin with the eyes. A person’s visual system interprets an ambiguous image in about 50 milliseconds. Then it takes another 340 milliseconds for the signal to reach the brain and for it to figure out what you’re seeing. Granted, you probably won’t be able to time yourself in milliseconds, but let us know your results nevertheless!

The saying goes: “Eyes can deceive us.” But are eyes the ones deceiving us, or is it actually our brains? Sometimes, it may be all about where our focus lies. In fact, if we’re not paying attention to what we’re looking at, we might miss very important details. But hey, didn’t we learn that with Where’s Waldo? when we were kids?

In 1999, cognitive psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons conducted an experiment titled “Invisible Gorilla.” They showed their subjects a video of basketball players and told them to track the ones wearing white shirts and count how many times they pass the ball. What they failed to mention was that a person wearing a gorilla suit would enter the frame. Yet, surprisingly, many people failed to notice the gorilla at all.

What the “Invisible Gorilla” experiment proved was that we have what Chabris and Simons called “inattentional blindness.” In other words, we can be quite oblivious when our attention is otherwise engaged. That’s part of why pictures like the ones on this list confuse us so. We have to consciously turn our brains “on” and look for solutions. Oftentimes, we come across them unprepared and are not looking to solve them like puzzles. But if we knew what exactly we were looking for, we’d be quick to decipher them.

Static photographs are easier for our brains to decipher, even when they’re mildly confusing. Once an object is moving, our eyes are easier to trick. Interestingly, we might miss certain static objects when their background is a moving pattern. This is a phenomenon psychologists call Motion-Induced Blindness (MBI). It proves that our eyes don’t work like a camera — the brain filters sensory input and “tells” us what we see. And, sometimes, it can make us a little bit blind.

If you’re staring at one of these photos long enough, you might start noticing that your peripheral vision is shrinking. You’ve probably experienced this — Troxler’s fading — if you’re a fan of optical illusions. It’s the classic one: a circle of dots with an X in the middle. If you stare at the X long enough, the dots start to disappear from your vision.

The explanation? Our visual system is designed to detect changes in our environment, so, when what we see remains static, our brains deem it insignificant and stop processing it. The dots blend into the background as our brains conserve metabolic energy, tricking us into thinking there are no dots.

What was your favorite confusing picture from this list, Pandas? Have you ever accidentally taken a photo from a confusing perspective? Share them with us in the comments! And if you’re in the mood for more visual trickery, check out our previous publications about perfectly timed photos and more accidental optical illusions!