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optical illusions

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Optical illusion that looks like a person with two dogs has people totally tripping

It takes a while to see it, but there are not two dogs in the photo.

@Rainmaker1973/X, @farhadge/X

Where is the third dog in this photo?

Optical illusions are wild. The way our brains perceive what our eyes see can be way off base, even when we're sure about what we're seeing.

Plenty of famous optical illusions have been created purposefully, from the Ames window that appears to be moving back and forth when it's actually rotating 360 degrees to the spiral image that makes Van Gogh's "Starry Night" look like it's moving.

But sometimes optical illusions happen by accident. Those ones are even more fun because we know they aren't a result of someone trying to trick our brains. Our brains do the tricking all by themselves.

The popular Massimo account on X shared a photo that appears to be a person and two dogs in the snow. The more you look at it, the more you see just that—two dogs and someone who is presumably their owner.

But there are not two dogs in this picture:

There are three dogs in this picture. Can you see the third?

Full confession time: I didn't see it at first. Not even when someone explained that the "human" is actually a dog. My brain couldn't see anything but a person with two legs, dressed all in black, with a furry hat and some kind of furry stole or jacket. My brain definitely did not see a black poodle, which is what the person actually is.

Are you looking at the photo and trying to see it, totally frustrated?

The big hint is that the poodle is looking toward the camera. The "hat" on the "person" is the poodle's poofy tail, and the "scarf/stole" is the poodle's head.

Once you see it, it fairly clear, but for many of us, our brains did not process it until it was explicitly drawn out.

As one person explained, the black fur hides the contours and shadows, so all our brains take in is the outline, which looks very much like a person facing away from us.

People's reactions to the optical illusion were hilarious.

One person wrote, "10 years later: I still see two dogs and a man."

Another person wrote, "I agree with ChatGPT :)" and shared a screenshot of the infamous AI chatbot describing the photo as having a person in the foreground. Even when asked, "Could the 'person' be another dog?" ChatGPT said it's possible, but not likely. Ha.

One reason we love optical illusions is that they remind us just how very human we are. Unlike a machine that takes in and spits out data, our brains perceive and interpret what our senses bring in—a quality that has helped us through our evolution. But the way our brains piece things together isn't perfect. Even ChatGPT's response is merely a reflection of our human imperfections at perception being mirrored back at us.

Sure is fun to play with how our brains work, though.


This article originally appeared on 1.8.24

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Scarlett Johansson's mom 'vanishing' from red carpet in weird optical illusion, explained

It really does look like she just *poof* disappears.

@crazyclipsonly/X

The woman behind Scarlett Johansson appears to disappear into thin air.

Optical illusions never fail to fascinate us, whether they're purposeful mind tricks or accidental photos that make something look like something it's not.

Video optical illusions are trickier than images because anyone can edit a video to make something appear to be something it's not. But occasionally a genuine video illusion comes along that forces our brains to stretch beyond what our eyes are perceiving, which is exactly what happened at a red carpet even in 2006.

In the video, Scarlett Johansson is stopped by a reporter and begins chatting about her dress and the highlight of the awards show. As Johansson speaks, people are seen milling about behind her. A woman in a strapless black dress walks behind her and then seems to disappear completely, as the man who was following the woman reappears on the other side of Johansson, but the woman doesn't.

Even the woman's shadow disappears, and slowing down the video doesn't make it any less wild to witness.

Watch:

Johannson, who apparently hadn't seen the video before, explained to Jimmy Fallon in November of 2023 that the woman in the video is actually her mother.

"I've been looking for her for the past 15 years!" she joked.

So what's the deal? Did ScarJo's mom slip into some kind of vortex or portal to an alternate universe or something?

As with every optical illusion, there's an explanation. For this one, the easiest way to understand it is by looking at the scene from a different angle.

Johansson's mom just happened to stop at exactly the right spot to be hidden by her daughter and at just the right depth where it's hard to see that the man following her actually walked right past her.

It seems so clear from this other perspective, but even knowing that's what happened, it's still hard to watch the original video and not feel like it's a magic trick of some sort. That's what makes optical illusions so much fun, though. Our brains create a reality based on what our eyes perceive, not on what is actually happening.

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People are arguing whether this is a picture of Tom Hanks or Bill Murray

via Reasons My Son is Crying/Facebook

Tom Hanks and Bill Murray


What do you think?


via Reasons My Son is Crying/Facebook

SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWER

Given the narrow beauty standards in Hollywood, there are a lot of actors and actresses that look look amazingly similar.

Heath Ledger and Joseph Gordon-Levitt look a lot alike…


As do Katy Perry and Zooey Deschanel…

But has anyone ever said, "You know which 60-something actors look identical? Tom Hanks and Bill Murray." Because they don't look alike. Although, funnily enough, Bill Murray did famously turn down the leads in Hanks' hits "Forrest Gump" and "Philadelphia," but I'm guessing nobody has ever screamed, "Loved you in 'Ghostbusters'" at Hanks as he walked down the street.

But for some reason, call it fate, call it luck, call it karma, the man making the "waaah" face in the orange raincoat above could easily be either man.

Here's what people are saying on Facebook:

via Reasons My Son is Crying/Facebook

The truth (should you choose to accept it):

The photo above is of Bill Murray and Laura DiMichele-Ross holding her crying son, Alexander, at the Alfred Dunhill Links golf competition at St. Andrews in October 2012. DiMichele-Ross posted the photo to a popular Facebook blog "Reasons My Son Is Crying" in May 2013. The photo resurfaced in October 2016 on the Today Show website, reigniting the controversy all over again.

Regardless of what the Internet is saying, DiMichele-Ross backs her original claim that it's Murray. "It's totally Bill," she reiterated in a comment on her post. "I can vouch cause I'm the one in the photo with the massive grin thinking 'Oh my god this is going to be an awesome photo!'"


This article originally appeared on 10.26.16

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First impressions: People say this optical illusion reveals if you're an optimist or a pessimist

Which way is the cat going?

via 9Gag

Is the cat going up or down the stairs?

An image that initially went viral eight years ago is having a second life as a fun personality quiz. The Minds Journal published a picture of a cat on a flight of stairs, and it claims that if your first impression of the photo was that the cat was walking up the stairs, you are an optimist. But if you think the cat is walking down the stairs, you are a pessimist.

The image first appeared at 9Gag in 2015.

According to The Minds Journal, you are an optimist who sees “potential and growth” wherever you look if you see the cat walking upstairs. “Your mind has been trained to look at ways of rising higher in life, so given a situation where you have the choice of rising higher than others or falling to their levels, you would inevitably be the better person.”

However, if you saw the cat going downstairs, you are a pessimist.

“It may have been based on your experiences in life or just because of the sort of people you may have met that tilted your view of life towards the negative side,” The Minds Journal's article says. “But this means that you don’t trust easily now, you calculate before you commit and you are wary of people who seem too sweet,” the article continues.

cat illusion, optical illusions, optimists and pessimists

Which way is the cat walking?

via 9gag

So what’s the truth? Is the cat walking up or down the stairs?

Here’s the argument for the “down” folks or, as The Minds Journal would call them, pessimists.

Here's the argument from the “up” people or optimists.

Business Insider took a hard stance, saying it’s “obvious” that the cat is going downstairs. “First, look at the architecture of the stairwell. The nose of the stair treads is overhanging the riser, which has a pebbled texture,” Business Insider says.

“Plus, if you look closely, there’s even a slight shadow under the overhanging nose of the stair treads,” the argument continues. “These shadows would only be visible if the cat was going down the stairs towards the viewer who is looking upstairs. The light coming from the upstairs landing is causing the shadow of the tread to fall on the riser.”

Here’s a visual explainer:

Obviously, a simple reaction to a photo of a cat is a far from perfect way to determine one’s personality. But research shows that optimists and pessimists have explicit biases when interpreting the world around them. It could also decide whether or not they thought the cat was walking up the stairs to greet its owner walking down the stairs to avoid a predator.

“To use the common expression, the optimist focuses his attention on the glass half full; that is, an optimist selects the positive/reinforcing cues from the environment, and tends to filter and ignore information that does not match his brighter outlook,” David Hecht writes in Experimental Biology.

“A pessimist tends to do the exact opposite. In general, a pessimist's attention is focused on the glass half empty; i.e. the pessimist allocates a disproportionately greater attention to the negative cues, while tending to forget the positive aspects of a situation,” Hecht continues.

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