This Illusion Shows How Your Peripheral Vision Is Playing Tricks on You

New York Magazine:

Of the five senses, sight seems to be the most trustworthy. It’s the one that’s most helpful in getting us through the day, the one that pushes us the most from I think to I know. Seeing is believing, a picture’s worth a thousand words, etc.

But really, sight is a lot trickier than we give it credit for. Often times, the reality we think we’re seeing is something else altogether — the brain bends visual information to suit its purposes, warping our vision in any number of ways. The sting of rejection, for example, makes us more inclined to perceive a stray glance as eye contact, even when it hasn’t actually landed anywhere near our eyes. New knowledge permanently alters the way we take in a given optical illusion. And, according to a study recently published in the journal Psychological Science, much of what we see in our peripheral vision is just the mind making up things that aren’t really there.

Read the whole story: New York Magazine