In this day and age it can sometimes be easy to solve any physical problem we have with the plethora of solutions, whether it’s popping a pill, taking some herbs or leading a healthy lifestyle through diet and exercise. There is an old adage, however, that definitely holds true: “Use it or lose it.”
Ever notice how your brain worked a heckuvalot faster when you were younger and now, as you age, it seems like what used to come easy doesn’t quite pop-out like it used to? There’s one method you can use that will keep your brain young and spry – optical illusions! In this article we’re going to discuss 5 different optical illusions you can use to train your brain.
If you’re an avid email user chances are you’ve gotten one of those emails full of optical illusions, the square that moves if you un-focus your eyes or the illusion where the colors stay behind your eyes when you close them. The part you may not realize when you’re “playing” with these emails is that they can actually help train your brain using critical thinking and critical visual thinking.
Spring Illusions
Moillusions.com has published a series of illusions that force the brain to exercise for specific items such as critical vision which is the process of spotting items hidden in a picture that you are not able to see upon the casual view. Take, for example, the optical illusion where there is what appears to be a simple seasonal house and yard with a sidewalk, trees, etc.
Initially everything appears to be copacetic but as you think critically about the picture you’ll see some oddities. Check out the front door; is it really opening in or out? Or what about the slant of the roof or the trees and their corresponding shadows?
Impossible Table Stuff
Another featured illusion has many visual errors in it – six to be exact, again meant to train your brain through critical vision. A couple of them are immediately obvious such as the reflection of the Coke bottle and the fact that you cannot see the pattern of the cloth through the glass, but what else can you see? The facts that tell you ahead of time that there are six total gives you a little head’s-up in this particular case because at least you’re aware of what your end goal needs to be…
Mysterious Circles
The third optical illusion uses critical vision and draws you instantly into the picture. Everything appears to be the same, circles the same shape, the same distance with a few differences here and there, but as you draw your eyes closer things are not what they appear. The idea of the illusion is to find the outlying circle that is the exact same size as the original circle in the middle. Can you figure out which one is the right size?
What Can You See?
Moving on to the fourth optical illusion to test your brain is one of mysterious shapes. It almost looks like the hide of a cow if you’re not exercising critical vision but this one’s purpose is actually to test what kind of personality you have, specifically, “Supposedly, depending what you see in the provided flecks, should give an examiner a vague insight into your psychological state of mind.” What, exactly, this means in terms of your own personality only a trained psychologist could say but it is fun to spend some time to see what you can find in the ink-blot-type forms!
Count the Pencils
The last of the illusions we’ll discuss is one that could quite possibly drive you to into insanity. Count the Pencils! seems simple upon first glance but it can be guaranteed that you’ll change your mind several dozen times and re-convince yourself of the true answer before coming to your final conclusion. This illusion serves a unique purpose in that you are being forced into both visual thinking and critical thinking. You have to be logical about your final answer – so, just how many pencils are there?
Our brains need to be exercised just as our bodies do. Your brain needs to be kept sharp, tuned and toned. You wouldn’t let your body atrophy from disuse so jump into some optical illusions and exercise your brain to keep it buff and in optimal, prime shape!
Sonia Mansfield is the content editor for PsPrint and editor of PsPrint Design Blog. PsPrint is an online commercial printing company specializing in catalog printing. You can follow PsPrint on Twitter @PsPrint
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