Much of what we see through visual perception is often distorted and far from reality. Take this image for example: This is a powerful optical illusion that can be used to demonstrate that you’re not seeing how things really are. Our visual system is made up of complex processes that try to understand what we see. This is the point where optical illusions can create distortions in our vision. In this case, the contrasting colors: green and gray lines make the lines appear distorted or curved even when they are actually straight. This illusion is called the Muller-Lyer Illusion and it has been widely studied in psychology and neuroscience. This viral illusion was uploaded by a Twitter user. One of the reviews said: “Due to peripheral vision you only have glare capture with less resolution. The well-placed gray square with the same brightness as the green blends with the lines so you see the curves.” The reason why the gray square looks curved even though it is straight is because of how our eyes and brain work together. Our eyes have parts that can see the sides of the object we are looking at, called peripheral vision. These parts don’t look very good in terms of details like color. They mainly see things as light or dark. So when we look at the green lines next to the gray square, our brain thinks they all blend together. It makes us look at the gray square as if it were curved even though it is straight! This is called the Cornsweet trick and an amazing scientist discovered it in 1970.
