Results: Your Mind Is A Powerful Tool

Optical illusions are illusions caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual percept that (loosely said) appears to differ from reality. We've seen quite a few in the past few years -- you may remember "The Dress" (is it black and blue, or white and gold?) and the Yanny/Laurel recording of last May. One of the hot illusions flooding the internet this year is the Upside down plate shot. The post, which has gone viral, shows a number of white plates scattered around each other. Along with the photo is the caption which prompts: "Look at the plates in the picture. All of them are turned over," the caption continues, "However, there are a few that are not upside down, and the moment you identify those, all the plates will be turned over!" Try it and see if it works for you. Did you see the plates all flip over?

Here's another fun optical illusion to try. This particular illusion comes from an academic paper published in 2000 in the journal Perception by Jacques Ninio and Kent A. Stevens. It went viral online when Akiyoshi Kitaoka‏ posted it on Facebook and game designer Will Kerslake reposted it on Twitter. There are 12 black circles in the image, but most people can't see them all at once. You should be able to see any dot you look at directly. But the ones in your peripheral vision pop in and out. That's because humans simply don't have very good peripheral vision, like --place black dots against grey lines -- your brain simply makes the best guess it can to fill in the information. In this case, it just guesses the dots aren't there. The white in between the grey lines makes your brain think the dots are lighter than they really are. Thus, it just sees more grey. That can counteract the blurry black dot that is actually, physically there. Did you see the dots all at once?

Look at this photo -- what do you see? The photo went viral when U.K. resident Arron Bevin posted it to Facebook. He said it took him "a good 5 minutes" to figure it out. What do you see? (Answer to follow in next question)

Most people see a brick wall, with a little stone lodged in there. But if you look closely, after a while you may see something else. There's a cigar wedged between the bricks, blending into the shadows. The ashy end of the cigar looks like a grey stone. Did you see it right away, or after looking at it for a while, or did you only see it when your attention was drawn to it?