Incredible Optical Illusion That Makes Two Blue Boxes Appear to Rotate When the Background Changes

Cube Illusion

Japanese artist jagarikin has created an incredible optical illusion that makes it look like two three-dimensional boxes are rotating in place. The boxes, which are colored blue and outlined in various shades of gray, appear to spin while the background flashes from white to black.

Finally, the illusion of moving three-dimensionally has been completed.

This type of visual phenomena is known as Reverse Phi, which legendary optical illusionist Michael Bach explains as the brain’s perception of movement when opposing tracks (positive and negative) are played at the same time.

The reason for the seemingly continuous forward motion is that our motion detectors are sign-dependent. Simultaneous inversion of contrast and motion direction does not reverse perceived motion direction. This effect is also known as “four stroke motion”. The disconcerting effect when watching this arises from a conflict: (1) our motion detectors indicate continuous motion, but (2) feature tracking indicates a forward-backward jump.

jagarikin also posted an amusing example of this with a cartoon hippopotamus.

via SoraNews24

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

Recent Posts