Optical Illusion Hole In Paper

[Brayan Jacobsen]

Youreyes work in pairs. Your brain takes the right eye's image and the left eye's image and blends them together to present you with a full image. How does it do this? Simply put, there are some nerve cells in the occipital cortex (the part of the brain that processes most of our visual input) that receive signals from both eyes. It is those cells that allow us to process the visual input from both eyes simultaneously and thus have depth perception and 3D vision. Therefore, when one of your eyes sees a hole and the other sees a hand, your brain merges the two images together to create a hand with a hole in it!

INTERESTING POINT: If you found the effect stronger on one side than the other, it indicates that one eye is likely dominant. What's that mean? It means your brain has a slight preference for visual information from that eye over the other. It's a similar idea to having a dominant hand or foot. However, your dominant eye may not be the same as your dominant hand or foot.

Bring this into your classroom (which is most likely in your home right now during this pandemic), and explore the science and biology behind it. Test out different options and different illusions! The eyes are an awesome scientific wonder!

Do you see a hole in your hand? When you look through the tube and see a hole in your hand, you are seeing an optical illusion. The tube allows you to look into the distance with your left eye and to see your hand with your right eye. Your brain took what your left eye saw and put it together with what the right eye saw, forming one image. That image makes it seem like there's a hole in your hand.

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The V&A only held a handful of paper peepshows until, in 2016, it received the large collection assembled by Jacqueline and Jonathan Gestetner. Gathered over a period of 30 years, it consists of over 400 paper peepshows and other optical devices dating from the 19th century to the present day.

Paper peepshows developed out of sturdier 18th-century peepshows, in which views were slid at regular intervals into a rigid box made of wood or cardboard, with the peephole located at one end. In the example below, several scenes have been combined into a larger frame. The layered structure of the peepshow was inspired by Baroque stage sets where the decor was painted onto a series of parallel planes that moved along grooves set in the stage.

The V&A has two early examples of these 'perspective views', as they were known, by Martin Engelbrecht, a German engraver and publisher. Both are taken from a series devoted to various trades and occupations: one takes us into a printer's workshop, and the other a painter's studio.

By the end of the 19th century, the popularity of the paper peepshow was in decline. The format was however revived in the 1950s, but this time it was more specifically aimed at children. The Werner Laurie Show Book Series was designed in such a way that a child could transform his or her book, with the help of glue and scissors, into a paper peepshow that depicted, for example, a performance of Swan Lake.

As part of a recent study led by the University of Oslo's Prof. Bruno Laeng, a total of 50 adult test subjects with normal vision (31 female, 19 male) were asked to look at the newly developed "expanding hole" optical illusion.

What's more, it was found that the greater the reported perception, the more the person's pupils unconsciously dilated as they viewed the illusion. This suggests that their brains were reacting as if the individuals were actually entering a dark tunnel, opening their pupils wider in order to take in more light.

I'm excited to share with you these optical illusion handmade card idea using Astrobrights cardstock. I came up with these neon and black cards on the fly and thought they were so fun, I just had to share this easy handmade card tutorial so you can make your own.

My newsletter subscribers get a new handmade card sketch each month and this month I'm actually sharing the sketch here (which I don't usually do) so that you can replicate these neon cards if you'd like. The card sketch features a 12 grid dot pattern cut file.

Next, adhere the black card sized negative piece to another piece of black cardstock. Place a dimensional foam square in the middle of each black hole and then begin placing your colored circle stacks in the black holes, changing up the colors in a pattern as you go.

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Artist Tom McPherson of Circle Line Art School creates a wonderful variety of video tutorials every Saturday on the subject of drawing. In one such tutorial, McPherson silently demonstrates through a mesmerizing timelapse how to achieve the optical illusion of a 3D hole on a flat piece of paper.

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

The illusory forward motion is probably our mind's way of preparing us for a change of scenery. By predicting a change from brightness to darkness, our visual system can adjust much faster to potentially perilous conditions, the researchers suggest.

"Although, as in any illusion, this virtual expanding darkness is experienced at the cost of veridicality, since the observer is neither moving forward nor entering any dark space, such a cost is likely to be less severe than if there were no corrections when an observer really moved forward into a dark space."

To do this, a group of 50 participants with normal vision were presented with 'expanding hole' images of various colors on a screen. In the series, they were also shown scrambled versions of the illusion with no discernible pattern in light or color.

The authors aren't sure why 14 percent of the group did not perceive any illusory expansion when the hole was black. But even among those who did perceive the illusion, the strength of the sensation varied.

"Our results show that pupils' dilation or contraction reflex is not a closed-loop mechanism, like a photocell opening a door, impervious to any other information than the actual amount of light stimulating the photoreceptor," says Laeng.

Instead of seeing the information that is presented directly in front of us, the visual neural network predicts how that information will change in the future, generating "an illusory 'outward expansion' of the central 'hole' region".

If the brain didn't do this, it would have taken milliseconds longer for the new visual information to reach higher processes in the brain. If it took this long for our pupils to dilate we might not be able to navigate the darkness as efficiently.

Cambodian artist Visoth Kakvei brings his intricate doodles to life. Only using a fine pen and paper, he fills his sketchbook with expansive and detailed doodles. Throughout each of his masterpieces, there are motifs of flowers, gardens, and most remarkably maze-like illustrations that look like optical illusions.

Kakvei is also unique because he experiments with digital drawings that make it look like his doodles are coming out of his sketchbook. His artwork contains more than doodles. He makes people ponder about what is happening in the drawing and if our minds is playing a trick on us.

On Instagram, Kakvei will post these short videos of him drawing his patterns and designs. I love watching these videos because they calm my mind and give me inspiration for my own work. Doodling is something I have done in class, home, and basically anytime I have a pen and paper. It is a fierce habit, but every time I draw, my doodles get better. It is clear that Kakvei has a passion for art and doodling and it is something that comes naturally in his mind. It is clear that there are patterns and similarities through his doodles and major artworks, but he always finds a way to make his artwork fresh and make people wonder what is next. Creating something outside your comfort zone usually will help an artist grow, and that is something that I am working on, rather than drawing the same motif over and over.

Kakvei sells his art on Society6, and he promotes his art on Instagram and Facebook. His following has grown over the year, and currently he has 1.2 million followers on Instagram. I am excited to see how Kakvei further expands his doodle collection. I would love to see his doodles on murals and for him to collaborate with other artists.

Look at your hand with both eyes open. Then use your left hand to alternately cover your left eye, then your right eye while you continue to look at your right hand through the uncovered eye. Do this slowly at first. As you slowly switch eyes, what do you notice first, each time you switch which eye is uncovered? Do you notice what is behind your hand? Do you notice the lines on your hand? (Just for fun: If you switch eyes fast enough, it may look like your right hand is moving back and forth a tiny bit!)

Open both your eyes and keep them open. Lower your right hand, and using your left hand, place the paper tube up to your left eye (being careful with any sharp paper edges) so that you are looking through it as you would a telescope. What do you see? Do you notice the paper tube first or the hole at the end of it? What do you notice about what your left eye sees compared with what your right eye sees?

Raise your right hand so that your palm faces toward you, then place it against the tube so that the outside of your pinky finger is touching the tube, about halfway down its length. Look straight ahead with both eyes open. What do you see? Do you notice anything about your right hand? Can you change what you see by moving your right hand closer or farther away from your face? What about if you move your right hand closer or farther away from the tube?

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