This Bizarre Illusion Makes Dots In Plain View Disappear

Health and Medicine





Photo credit:

Watch this space. Mlechowicz/Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 3.0

Fancy messing with your senses? Stare at the flashing green dot in the middle of the animation below, and see if you notice anything untoward.

If you stare at the green speck long enough, the three surrounding yellow dots will disappear. This is a phenomenon called “motion-induced blindness” (MIB), a form of illusion that causes a person to lose sight of objects that are otherwise in plain view. Although this may appear to be a failing of your own brain’s visual system, fret not: It is merely a way of filtering out excess information.