WATCH: Can you see all 12 dots? Decoding mind tricks

Do you know why you can’t see all the dots at once? (Source: AsapScience/Youtube)

This year has seen so many optical illusion puzzles already, and we’re quite sure the season for inspiring a whole new set is just about here. Last year we were busy spotting pandas and snowmen to cats and rabbits, we’ve seen it all. Then, of course, there are the classics that have been doing the rounds for many years now (and no, we’re not referring to the Rorschach test).

We all have, at one point or the other, tried to test our eyesight and observation skills, but how many of us really know HOW optical illusions work, and WHY do our eyes so easily ignore some parts of a particular picture, while sometimes ‘inventing’ other sections that were never there to start with. The very fact that our eyes are capable of the latter belies the adage ‘seeing is believing’.

To make things clearer, explaing the reasons for these illusions, Youtube channel AsapScience has come out with a fun video of classic illusions, categorically explaining how our eyes see what they do. One of the reasons can be that every person as a blind spot – the area where the blood vessels and nerve connect to the eye – and the part of the image that hits that spot automatically get obliterated.

Story continues below this ad

Similarly, the eye also works on the power of assumption, sometimes filling in information based on a recurring pattern in an image that is in front of you. This explains why in the various dot-inspired optical illusion photos, you sometimes see the dots, and sometimes don’t.

Watch the video here.

Found this fascinating? Now, test your eyesight with these puzzles.