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Your eyes help you see the world, but you can't see this dot.
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No, seriously. If you close your left eye, stare at this cross here with your right eye,
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and slowly move your head towards or away from the screen,
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the dot will disappear, revealing the exact location of your blind spot.
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The cells at the back of your eye transform light into signals that are sent to your brain.
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But they are missing right here, because this is where nerves and blood vessels connect to the eye.
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So anything at that point in your vision, you can't see, aka your blind spot.
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If we add a line through the image and you try again,
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you'll notice that your brain fills in information and makes you think the line is continuous
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instead of there being a hole in your vision.
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You also can't see all twelve of these black dots at once for a similar reason.
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Go ahead and try.
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Chances are you'll only see a fraction of them at once.
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The exact point your eye looks at is focused,
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but your peripheral vision isn't great,
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and so your brain often makes assumptions for what's there.
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Because of the consistent gray line pattern,
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your brain assumes the rest of the image is just like that and misses the black dots
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until you look directly at them.
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These two rectangles are flashing at a phase with each other, right?
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How about now?
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For most, the rectangles will now seem to be flashing at the same time in phase, but they aren't at all.
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And yet, if we move these shapes beside them just a few pixels,
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you'll begin to see them out of phase again.
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The surrounding area has a direct impact on how you see and perceive things,
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even if the result isn't correct.
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Not convinced?
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Look at these flashing squares.
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Except, what you may not have seen is that the middle square isn't flashing at all.
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If we remove the outer square, we see it for what it is: a solid color.
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Now, try reading the sentence inside it.
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Did you catch the extra word?
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Your brain doesn't always notice mistakes like these because it doesn't affect your comprehension of the sentence,
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and your brain will prefer to act quickly rather than to be perfectly accurate.
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Try staring at the middle dot in this illusion.
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When the picture isn't moving, the colors are clearly changing quickly,
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yet when the image starts rotating, the color change either seems nonexistent or much slower.
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Our eyes and brain have evolved to see,
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but our vision makes assumptions based on learning, memory, and expectation.
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And all of these illusions take advantage of this adaptation.
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It's an advantage to have rapid information-processing,
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so instead of taking in every bit of detail to be 100% accurate,
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which would cause a brain-overload,
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your brain makes assumptions.
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This faster perception allows for faster reflexes and faster conscious and unconscious decisions,
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an integral aspect of human nature, much like this halo,
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if you stare at the center spot for long enough, the brain will simply make it disappear.
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It makes an assumption that the information is unchanging or unimportant,
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and as a result, you can't see it.
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Love tricking your brain with illusions?
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We've put together a playlist of our favorite ones that you can watch by clicking the screen.
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