Reflection No. 3: Three Optical Illusions That Stand Out to Me

The three optical illusions that I have experienced in real-life that have stood out to me are the ‘wagon wheel,’ ‘apparent motion,’ and ‘inattentional blindness’ illusions. The ‘wagonwheel’ illusion has intrigued me the most ever since it captured my attention as a little boy.

I thought it was cool to look at the wheels moving on another car passing by while sitting in the backseat as my parents drove me around places. I would play a game to deal with my boredom to see if I could try to see the wheels moving forward 100% of the time by blocking out the illusion of them moving backwards. To no avail, my eyes would not cooperate because, no matter how much my natural saccadic eye movements tried to keep up with the fast motion of the wheels, my brain would continue filling in the gaps it couldn’t keep up with to allow me to not be able to completely avoid seeing this illusion. Now, the second illusion that stood out to me when I enjoyed watching Disney shows as a child was ‘apparent motion.’

I remember being so excited to receive a small pocket-sized book either from McDonald’s happy meals or boxes of breakfast cereal. I would flip through it and watch as a character moved in artificial, real-time motion. It blew my mind away. I don’t know how many times I spent flipping through those books, but it was countless. It was just neat to watch “the rapid alternation of objects on the page moving in different locations in rapid succession.” Finally, the last illusion ‘inattentional blindness’ recently happened when I was driving.

While driving through a neighborhood, I saw in the distance the stoplight as a sign that I was finally about to get out of a specific neighborhood I was lost in. Well, lo and behold, a stop sign appeared out of nowhere as I got closer and realized what I missed, and I slammed on my brakes the moment I saw it.