Cool collection of optical illusions

Scientific American is doing a whole issue on optical illusions and they've got a sampling up on their website as a slideshow. It's interesting to see how some illusions are created by physical tricks of the eyes, while others are, apparently, psychological in nature. This illusion, for instance, is supposed to be influenced by the way sexual maturity changes your frame of mind—kids see dolphins and grown-ups see, well, sex.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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toilet

OK, those dolphins took a while
Anonymous

Are there any studies or surveys that can reinforce that age-influenced illusion? Personally, I find it suspect, but I could be wrong and would enjoy seeing some evidence that I’m jumping to the wrong conclusions.
- Anonymous
  
  My three year old girl saw “a fairy” before the dolphins. She didn’t mention the creepy dude behind her holding her tit!
Stefan Jones

Didn’t even think about dolphins until it was pointed out. But there they are. Freaky.

Powerphail: All the dark gray bits inside the borders of the white figures are dolphins. The woman’s pubic area is a tail, with the dolphin facing to the SW from there.
Sweetcarovan

Sex? What sex?
- Anonymous
  
  OMG
Dewi Morgan

Ooh, I can see the man blowing smoke, too :D
Von Haus

What would happen if it was a picture of two dolphins made out of lots of people having sex?

Insert commas where you see fit.
whomever

The Bogart eye illusion seems a bit of a reach. I had to force myself to ignore the curve of the irises to get my brain to see what the caption says I should have seen outright. A sample with less-distinct curves would have been a better choice.

As there are only ten or so illusions at that site, here’s a link to a collection of annual contest finalists:
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/
- Hools Verne
  
  Here you go
Viktor

Thank goodness for the text, I finally see the dolphins. Those dirty, dirty, dolphins….
Bryan Price

I guess it says something when my firs thought is:

“It has dolphins? What dolphins?”
irksome

Dolphins?
Stefan Jones

If I’m counting right, that’s a human-dolphin Eleven Way!
DeWynken

called my 6 year old girl over and asked her what she saw

“I see boobs”

great.
- Dewi Morgan
  
  Like Anon @#6, I suspected the “children see something different” thing was almost certainly a myth, and am glad to see that anecdotally confirmed.
  
  Any more parents willing to try?
salsaman

Michael Boch has a great web site with many, many optical illusion examples and non-hypey explanations:
http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html
Anonymous

I actually showed this to a kid and she saw nothing but dolphins. I miss my innocence
takeshi

I see the dolphins just fine, but like most people over the age of 6 I see the sex way more.
Antinous / Moderator

Yeah, now do one with two guys made out of luggage.
dbarak

I saw peanut butter sandwiches on rye. Is that a problem?
IamInnocent

Dolphins having group sex? Hmmm, hard to make out…
peterbruells

Should it worry me that I see the lovers and the dolphins at the same time?
- cjp
  
  I saw the lovers and dolphins at almost exactly the same moment. I’ve noticed my reaction to these images is always this way and I chalk it up to being a visual artist. Maybe we are looking at the piece as a whole. Negative space exercises from art school days must be having an effect here.
Anonymous

“This illusion, for instance, is supposed to be influenced by the way sexual maturity changes your frame of mindâ€”kids see dolphins and grown-ups see, well, sex”

Specious reasoning right there. We’re taught/designed to see human-like forms first, so we see humans.
Anonymous

this would be better if the dolphins were unicorns
Anonymous

If you look at these types of illusions similar to you would a magic eye picture, you can see both. Well, at least I can. A psych prof during a class on illusions said that if anybody could see both he would like to work with them (I interpreted, be studied by him), so didn’t raise my hand…
bcsizemo

Why do I see a “hand bra” first and then the face/heads…
Nevermore

If dolphins would see this picture, would they see the the marina mammal erotica first and have trouble recognizing the humans?
happymutant

asked my 3-year-old and 5-year-old sons to tell me what they saw. both saw ‘a man kneeling down’; my younger added that the man was ‘blowing smoke’.
bobb

The image shown is from “The message of dolphins” by Sandro Del-Prete. Al Seckel’s book “Masters of Deception” contains a chapter on Del-Prete’s artwork. Seckel writes, “The image was also displayed in an illusion exhibit gallery at the Museum of Science in Boston. When asked if there was any controversy about displaying this image, the curators replied that once a group of nuns had objected, but were quickly silenced when told that one’s perception is based upon past experience.”
Anonymous

My 4 year old saw “a woman trapped in a bottle,” not dolphins. I don’t think this has as much to do with sexual maturity as much as what is the obvious dominant image from a distance.
Anonymous

It took me a couple minutes to actually see dolphins.
Anonymous

i knew it was a trick but didn’t see dolphins till i read it. :)
warreno

What if the image makes me want to have sex with dolphins?
- Cory Doctorow
  
  “What if the image makes me want to have sex with dolphins?”
  
  You’re Samuel Delany.
Anonymous

Hah! Love the dolphins!
GraemeM

How did they train the Dolphins to swim that way?
Anselm

I wonder if the age thing has to do with sexual maturity or with older people looking for patterns while younger people look for detail? I saw the couple first, then focused in to see the dolphins. Once I was looking at the dolphins, I had to relax my eyes to see the humans again.
Powerphail

Maybe this says a bit more about me than I’d like to let on, but I can only see two nudes, I can’t see the dolphins at all. Can anyone help me out?
- kmoser
  
  The dolphins may be difficult to recognize because they aren’t wearing any clothes.
- Anonymous
  
  you will find one tail on the crotch. follow that.
- Cowicide
  
  I thought I was being rickrolled and gave up on the dolphins. Finally, after looking at it one more time many hours later when tired and ready for sleep, they jumped right out at me. Strange.