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How optical illusions trick your brain - Nathan S. Jacobs

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Optical illusions are images that seem to trick our minds into seeing something different from what they actually are. But how do they work? Nathan S. Jacobs walks us through a few common optical illusions and explains what these tricks of the eye can tell us about how our brains assemble visual information into the 3D world we see around us.

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Meet The Creators

  • Educator Nathan S. Jacobs
  • Director Biljana Labović
  • Animator Lisa LaBracio
  • Narrator Addison Anderson
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Lesson creator

by TED-Ed

Animals that don’t have good vision, such as rats who spend a lot of time burrowing underground, also explore their environments. They need to quickly figure out what is going on around them.

However, rats “see” their surrounding environment by touching it with dozens of whiskers that they can move around to touch nearby objects. So we use our eyes to see, but rats use their whiskers and their sense of touch to see. Now imagine that you and your pet rat are just hanging out when you see a marble on the ground. You look at the marble with your eyes and your pet rat looks at the marble by touching it with his whiskers. What are some things that both of you “see” even though you are using two totally different senses? What are some things that only you can see? What are some things that only your pet rat can see?

Comments are closed on this discussion.

Avatar for Abigail NEWMAN
Lesson in progress

We all see that the marble is round and has no sharp edges, we also see how small the marble is, but we can fully see the real colors of it and the rat can't.


Avatar for Gabe Katona
Lesson completed

we both see that the marble is round and has no sharp edges, we see how small the marble is, but i can fully see the real colours of it and the rat cant, but i dont get what the rat sees that we dont


Avatar for zeeza brooks
Lesson in progress

The rat and I can both see a ball that the rat may play with. I can see things on my Cellular device and I can see a fly flying. Rats can see the molecules a strand of hair and it can see the wind


Avatar for Titus Bessey
Lesson in progress

You: It's roundness
Rat: Nothing


Avatar for Keishawn Dhillon
Lesson in progress

I think that we'll both see the shape and the texture of the marble.


Avatar for Braxton Haggith
Lesson completed

we both can see the shape of the object. humans can see all the color in the object and we can see the shadows around it. The rat cant see it very well because they just can sense the object without its sight


Avatar for Emma McBeath
Lesson completed

WHY DON'T I GET THE ABILITY TO NOTICE THINGS UNDERGROUND. *trips on a stool in the dark* AW, FRICK!


Avatar for anthony knapp
Lesson in progress

in response to Ana Turner Show comment

no they can see better at night because of their night vision also they can still see other things than edges and shadows they arent blind.


Avatar for raahim memon
Lesson in progress

I guess, that I could see the color of the marble, it's transparency (if it is transparent) and a shape. Rat could "say" that the marble is round, that it's surface is smooth. But I'm still wondering, what are those things that only a rat can see? But rats do use their eyes too?


Avatar for Kyra Sampson
Lesson completed

Both of us can "see" that the marble is small and round, I can see the color of the marble that my rat, Rodger, can't, Rodger can "see" that it's smooth and cold.

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