Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

It is widely known that we are wired to recognize faces, and so we can see faces in a variety of things (electrical plugs, car grills, etc.) But that breaks down in a horrifying way when we use peripheral vision to see faces.
> Click on this link for a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flashed_face_distortion_effect. and see the picture below.
> Enlarge the picture, and press Play. It will soon flash thru a series of faces.
> Stare at the + in the middle (don't look at a face directly), and so by seeing faces in your peripheral vision you will soon be treated to a freak show. I don't know why this works, but it's an award-winning optical illusion.

Cheers!

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

WOW!!!
That's so weird!

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Our brains can’t keep the pace….

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

I wonder if it only works with faces, or if it's a general thing about our peripheral vision. What if one made the same animation by flashing different pictures of chairs?

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

Quite interesting.

sippyjug104 Loc: Missouri

A trip right out of the 60's...!

Niklon Loc: Athens, Ga

Seriously weird!

robertjerl Loc: Corona, California

Due to differences in my eyes it is hard for me to do.
I tried an experiment, I covered one face and the distortions still show up, so I am thinking it is really a trick more than optical illusion.
But???? Like I said, my eyes are so different. Multiple times more near-sighted in the right than the left. My brain tends to reject the right eye's image when the left eye also covers the subject. This happens even with glasses or contacts because I was born near-sighted in the right eye and by 5th grade the strain started effecting my left. And I didn't find out I had convergence deficiency until my late 20s. By that time, my brain was hardwired to use the left eye's image over the right*. Two days ago the new optometrist the VA sent me to did a few tests and agreed with me about that, so he put in some extra time on my left eye and ended up altering the first tested Rx results on he left eye for my new glasses. I can't wait to get them and see how they work out.

*It also explained why I could shoot just as well left-handed as right, and when shooting right-handed cocked my head over to sight with the left eye. That one sort of freaked the instructors when I was in the Army. I would flip the rifle/pistol from right to left and back again during long strings of popup targets and keep scoring Expert. To quote one SGT "Cut that shit out!!! You are confusing the range master and your scorer!"

DRam11 Loc: Polson, MT

I first did as directed and looked at the cross, the tried looking at one or another of the faces. It didn't matter where my focus was, the faces change anyway.