“Champions of Illusion: The Science Behind Mind-Boggling Images and Mystifying Brain Puzzles” by Susana Martinez-Conde, Stephen L. Macknik

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Rating: 4/5 Stars

A fantastic book, containing a list of illusions that will have you wondering just what your brain is up when you look at the environment, observe A, only to learn that what you see wasn’t A at all.

The illusions are divided into various categories, each illustrated with several illusions with possible explanations on what the illusion might be doing to mystify your brain. Not all the illusions are explainable; this field is very much still a work in progress.

Some illusions can be seen as static ones, requiring you to only look at them. Others require you to move your eyes or the book to see it, and others depend on you staring for some time before the illusion becomes apparent. Most illusions will be apparent to a majority of readers, while some may not work due to subtle differences in how the brains of some readers work.

Another class of illusions are described in the book but not presented are moving illusions which don’t work as static images in the book. For those, you have to go to the Best Illusion of the Year Contest website to see them.

An excellent book to read to discover how the brain can be fooled into seeing something that should not be there. It is also an interesting examination of how evolution has shaped our visual system and how illusions can help reveal just how the brain works to interpret how it sees the world.

Book read from 2018/01/19 to 2018/01/23