Our brains do a lot of calculations without us being aware of it, and sometimes it comes to the wrong conclusion about what’s happening. In this illusion, you can make the ball seem like it is swinging in a circle when it is really swinging along a straight line. The proper name for this illusion […]
Seeing things you can’t really see! The brain can’t handle all the sensory information it gets, so it makes guesses, fills things in and filters other things out. The blind spot shows you how the brain can fills things in to make sense of the world for you – even letting you see things you […]
Our brain is constantly drawing conclusions about our body based on the sensory information it gets, but sometimes comes to the wrong conclusion. In this case, sensory information from the body makes a smooth pencil feel lumpy.
The brain puts information together to come to conclusions about the body. This illusion shows that the brain can easily come to the wrong conclusion about the body. The official name for this illusion is the Anne Boleyn Illusion – Anne Boleyn was rumoured to have six fingers, but she didn’t in reality.
This demonstration shows how changing the way our brain gets sensory information can completely change what we usually experience.
When the brain gets unusual sensory information, it tries to make sense of it using your own beliefs and past experiences. Sometimes, the conclusion your brain comes to leads to strange feelings. The official name for this illusion is the Velvet Hand Illusion because to some people it feels like rubbing velvet instead of wire.
Numb hands and misbehaving fingers. Two further illusions that demonstrate how the brain can put information together and come to the wrong conclusions. Try these after you’ve tried the Anne Boleyn (extra finger) illusion.
Rewiring your brain! You naturally know quite well how to point at something or throw a beanbag to hit a target. When we put these special goggles on they shift what you can see to one side which makes your brain learn a new skill in only 20 seconds! This in not something you can […]
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Our brains do a lot of calculations without us knowing. They use the timing of the light getting to our eyes, along with assumptions about light and sight, to work out where things are. This is really helpful, because it means that we know which things around us are closer than other things.