Best Visual Illusions Of 2014

By Tania Lombrozo

Published May 21, 2014 at 2:18 PM EDT

The 2014 winners of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest were announced this past Sunday. Hosted yearly since 2005 by the Neural Correlate Society, the contest celebrates "the ingenuity and creativity of the world's premier visual illusion research community."

Visual illusions aren't just cool — they can also help us understand how our visual system works. So prepare to be amazed, but also to learn, as you peruse this year's finalists and winners, including Christopher Blair, Gideon Caplovitz, and Ryan Mruczek's first-place winning "Dynamic Ebbinghaus," in which a central circle only appears to change in size as the circles around it change in size and location:

You can keep up with more of what Tania Lombrozo is thinking on Twitter: @TaniaLombrozo

Tania Lombrozo

Tania Lombrozo is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. She is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an affiliate of the Department of Philosophy and a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences. Lombrozo directs the Concepts and Cognition Lab, where she and her students study aspects of human cognition at the intersection of philosophy and psychology, including the drive to explain and its relationship to understanding, various aspects of causal and moral reasoning and all kinds of learning.

See stories by Tania Lombrozo

Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

That means $2.1 million per year that Connecticut Public relied on to deliver you news, information, and entertainment programs you enjoyed is gone.

The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.

Donate

SOMOS CONNECTICUT is an initiative from Connecticut Public, the state’s local NPR and PBS station, to elevate Latino stories and expand programming that uplifts and informs our Latino communities. Visit CTPublic.org/latino for more stories and resources. For updates, sign up for the SOMOS CONNECTICUT newsletter at ctpublic.org/newsletters.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

Federal funding is gone.

Donate