Why Do We See Optical Illusions?

The Brain





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Don't believe everything you see. Marjan Apostolovic/Shutterstock

The human visual system is a remarkably complicated thing, although in spite of – or perhaps because of – its complexity, it is capable of making some pretty major mistakes. This fallibility is playfully exposed by optical illusions, which are often very simple in design yet completely deceptive to our brains, causing us to see things that aren’t there.