The Cornsweet illusion exploits the brain’s lateral inhibition, which creates more contrast between the two objects when they have different colored edges.

The Ebbinghaus illusion exploits our perception of relative size. When an object is surrounded by larger objects, it seems far smaller than it actually is.

The Pinna-Brelstaff illusion occurs because of flaws in peripheral vision.

Our brains automatically adjusts color based on surrounding shadows. Since B is in the shade of the green cylinder, but is still the same color as A, the brain believes that it’s a lighter shade of grey.

Staring at the swirling gif makes your eyes fatigued, so the non-moving images come to life as they try to regain composure.

When the black bars are removed, you’ll see that they’re always parallel and that the black bars are distorting your brain’s perception of movement.

This is the dynamic luminance-gradient effect by Alan Stubbs from the University of Maine.

Instead of turning black and white, your brain fills in the color it thinks you should be seeing, based on the orange and blue photo. Blink and you’ll be back to black and white.

No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to look directly at the black dots that appear in the circles. Why this illusion works is still a mystery.

The “hollow face illusion” works because our brains perceive objects differently when we recognize them as faces. Although the right eye of the dinosaurs get farther as you move, you brain believes the distance is closer than it really is.

This is part of the ‘wagon-wheel effect. Closing your eyes for a second then opening them or looking in the direction you want the train to travel, should allow you to switch directions on command. The same goes for this wheel…

By staring at either the left or right dancer, you can change the direction the middle dancer spins.

Hard to believe but the yellow dots never actually disappear. Still images are quick to fall from our awareness, especially when they’re surrounded by constantly changing imagery.

It’s actually an image of two people kissing – not a single person’s face.

There are specific parts of your brain dedicated to face perception. But, we rarely encounter upside-down faces, so, when we do, it’s very difficult to spot any distortion.

If two towers are parallel, then from a ground perspective they’d eventually converge into one another. So, when your eyes and brain see two towers that are parallel, they assume that they must be moving apart as they rise into the air and create the resulting illusion.

Initially, it’s difficult to see the grey line between white and black tiles, meaning that the brain fills in the grey as either black or white, creating the illusion that the lines are sloped.