Brain-baffling ‘corner or curves’ optical illusion tricks you into seeing what’s not there

A STRANGE optical illusion can reveal whether you’re ‘curvature blind’.

That’s a name given to a trick on the brain that makes you see corners instead of curves.

This optical illusion can trick you into seeing zigzag lines

The mind-bending trick was created by experimental psychologist Kohske Takahashi and is called the ‘curvature blindness illusion’.

Depending on the types of lines you see in the image above, you may be ‘curvature blind’.

Don’t worry, it’s not a medical condition, just the name given to this interesting trick of the mind.

Takahashi describes the trick in a research paper as “a wavy line is perceived as a zigzag line”.

Take a look at the image and determine whether you see straight-lined zigzags, softer curvy waves, or both.

Especially when they look at the grey section of the image.

But if you look closely, you should be able to see that all the lines are exactly the same soft, curved waves.

Many of us will still see a harsh zigzag pattern in the grey section even now we know that the lines aren’t really that shape.

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This has been called ‘curvature blindness’ and Takahashi thinks it could be due to how we spot the difference between corners and curves in the real world.

When we look at the optical illusion and its different patterns and colors, the visual system in our brains may get confused.

Shading, colors, and the different brightness strengths can all be used to trick the brain.

Takahashi wrote in his study: “We propose that the underlying mechanisms for the gentle curve perception and those of obtuse corner perception are competing with each other in an imbalanced way.”

He suggested that corner perception may be more dominant in the brain.

The psychologist previously told The Telegraph: “I’d say that our eyes and brain may have been evolutionarily adapted to detect corners more efficiently than curves.