At first glance, the two lines in the Müller-Lyer Illusion look unmistakably different, one appears longer, the other shorter, and your brain feels absolutely certain about it. But here’s the twist: ...

(This is Part 2 of a two-part blog series.) Take a look below at the famous Müller-Lyer illusion. Every student of psychology knows that the two horizontal lines are actually the same length, even ...

FOR all the fun we have with them, illusions do serious work in illuminating how our brains work, and in particular how perception works. They may also help us understand how consciousness developed, ...

THE WINDIEST DESERT — What's your favorite optical illusion? Famous examples include the Ames room, the Ponzo illusion, the Zöllner illusion, the Kanizsa triangle, the Müller-Lyer illusion and the ...

On the idea of learning to be less fooled by optical illusions, I do some lecture-performances to illusion-savvy audiences about pataphysics, art, zombie theory and so on. I tell them they just can’t ...