Visual Illusions Psychology

Which monster looking bigger? The one which is chasing the other? Right?

Bigger Vs Smaller

Now look at this. What's your take now?

Equal Heights

Both are of same size. A 3D tunnel built around deceives your visual system & totally changes how it perceive things.

Now take a look at this. Are these straight lines or not? Definitely not! Right?

Straight or Curved

But you are totally wrong! Have a look at this.

Only Straight Lines

Again white & black checks surrounded in certain disorder changes how you perceive things.  

Checker Shadow illusion

Which square is darker here; A or B?

A is darker or B

The A appears darker than B here. But that's not the reality. Both shares equal levels of brightness & gray levels. A printer would you same ink to print those squares. 

Equally Darker

What's challenge to visual system here?

The task given to your visual system here is to determine the color of the object & here it is gray level. But shadow of cast plays here big role. The square under shadow reflecting less light than the one is not in shadow. Visual system need to do several tricks to compensate that shadow effect & determine the exact color of the square under shadow.

What tricks visual system uses?

1. Local contrast : Irrespective of shadow, a lighter check surrounded by more lighter checks is perceived as a check with more average lightness & vice versa. In the figure, the light check in shadow is surrounded by darker checks. Thus, even though the check is physically dark, it is light when compared to its neighbors. The dark checks outside the shadow, conversely, are surrounded by lighter checks, so they look dark by comparison.

2. Shadows often have soft edges while paints (here checks) have sharp edges. The visual system tends to ignore gradual changes in light level, so that it can determine the color of the surfaces without being misled by shadows. In this figure, the shadow looks like a shadow, both because it is fuzzy and because the shadow casting object is visible.

3. The "paintness" of the checks is aided by the form of the "X-junctions" formed by 4 abutting checks. This type of junction is usually a signal that all the edges should be interpreted as changes in surface color rather than in terms of shadows or lighting.
 
Conclusion :

The effect illustrates success rather than failure of our visual system. The illusion asking our visual system to act as a light meter; but it's definitely not built for it. What's the success of our visual system here is it breaks the information into meaningful components & then perceive different aspects of objects.



Courtesy : Wikipedia
 

Water Measurement With 2 Buckets - Puzzle

You have two buckets. One holds exactly five gallons and the other three gallons. How can you measure exactly four gallons of water into the five gallon bucket?

Assume you have an unlimited supply of water and that there are no measurement markings of any kind on the buckets.

How to measure 4 gallons?

Click here to know how it could be done? 

Source 

Water Measured Using 2 Buckets - Puzzle Cracked

What was the challenge? 

Method 1 :

1. Fill up the 3 gallons bucket & pour into 5 gallons bucket.

2. Again fill the gallon bucket & once again pour it into 5 gallons bucket. After completely filling 5 gallons bucket there will be 1 gallon left in 3 gallons bucket.

3. Empty 5 gallons bucket.

4. Pour that 1 gallon into 5 gallons bucket. Now fill up 3 gallons bucket. We have 4 gallons of water now 1 in 5 gallons bucket & 3 in 3 gallons bucket.


Method 2:

1. Fill up 5 gallons bucket & pour it into 3 gallons bucket. 2 gallons would remain in 5 gallons bucket.

2. Pour that 2 gallons of water into 3 gallons bucket. Now only space for 1 gallon left in 3 gallons bucket.

3. Again fill up 5 gallons bucket & pour into 3 gallons bucket containing 2 gallons of water left. So only 1 gallon can be poured & 4 gallons would be remaining in 5 gallons bucket.