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- This TikToker shares dozens of optical illusions and brain teasers with his almost 4 million followers.
- Almost without fail, most of them come away completely stumped after seeing or trying them.
- Read more news about optical illusions here.
People love optical illusions. And there’s good reason for that, which we will get to in a moment.
First, though, let me introduce you to “HecticNick” on TikTok.
Nick is one of those people who understands the appeal of a good optical illusion. He understands it so well that he’s garnered almost 4 million followers on TikTok sharing almost nothing but the brain teasers.
Take this one for example…
The two buses in the photo certainly appear to be different sizes, right? The one in the back is clearly smaller than the one in the front. Not so fast.
@hecticnick This is NOT what you think it is!!! 🤯 #fyp #viral ♬ Thinking with My Dick (feat. Juicy J) – Kevin Gates
Now listen, I didn’t believe him either. I went through the comments and there were many skeptics who claimed that the buses were absolutely not the same size, so, you know what? I decided to find out using the ole Photoshop and here’s what I discovered.
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What… kind of sorcery is that? They ARE the same size. Crazy, huh?
Why do we like optical illusions so much?
Circling back to the reasons “why” we love optical illusions like that we have to go waaaayyy back in time as Scientific American states “our deep fascination with them dates back to the ancient Greeks.”
SUNY Downstate Medical Center professors of ophthalmology Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik state, “It is a fact of neuroscience that everything we experience is a figment of our imagination.”
Aude Oliva, a cognitive scientist from MIT, says, “The human brain is really tuned to learning new things. Anything that is new and surprising is something we naturally like because it means that we may learn something from it.”
Got all that? Kind of takes the fun out of it, doesn’t it?
To make up for you having to learn some science today, here are a few more of the most popular optical illusions and brain teasers shared by “HecticNick” on TikTok recently.
@hecticnick Can you read this on your first try? 🤔 #fyp #illusion #opticalillusion ♬ SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY – Remix – Amaarae & Kali Uchis
Can you see it? Change your focus a little bit and voila!
@hecticnick Can you answer this question right? 🤔 #fyp #opticalillusions #illusions ♬ You’re a Jerk – New Boyz
Did you fail?
@hecticnick This picture is not what you think it is! 🤯 #illusions #foryoupage ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
That’s just not right.