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Daily Mail
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Can YOU see two animals? This photo of a kookaburra has a second creature hidden in it - so, can you spot it?
From colour-changing fire trucks to 'The Dress', many optical illusions have baffled the internet over the years. But this latest illusion might be one of the strangest yet. Dr Dean Jackson, a biologist and BBC presenter, has shared an unusual image on TikTok that contains two hidden animals. At the start of the video, Dr Jackson presents a picture of a kookaburra sitting on a log. However, he then reveals that there is actually a second animal hidden somewhere in the picture that only a few keen-eyed viewers can spot. Dr Jackson describes this as an 'experiment on reframing and reimagining based on a prior image.' In the video, he says: 'A kookaburra perched in a tree, I want to know how quickly you can reframe what you've just seen when we move on to another picture. 'Lots of people who haven't seen the first picture before see a very different animal here.' @beatonthebeeb An experiment on reframing and reimagining based on a prior image. #mindgame #perception #opticalillusions #opticalillusion #weirdscience ♬ original sound - Dean Jackson If you still can't see the second animal once the image has zoomed in, Dr Jackson offers a helpful hint. He says: 'The animal that they see is way bigger than a kookaburra and it most definitely cannot fly.' As a final bit of assistance, Dr Jackson adds an image of some grass where the second animal's mouth should be. After all that, you should be able to see the goat's head emerging from the kookaburra. Markings on the back of the bird's head take on the appearance of a mouth while the beak becomes the goat's ear. On TikTok, users rushed to the comments to share their amazement over the bizarre optical illusion. One commenter wrote: 'Wow, completely freaked me out. Absolutely amazing. I thought what goat?' Another chimed in: 'So, could see the goat but I still knew it was a bird. But when the video started again, I saw a bird with a goat's head. Thanks for the nightmare fuel, I guess.' However, if you struggled to see the hidden goat until it was pointed out, you weren't alone. 'I didn't spot it till about 10 seconds after you added the grass. I work with goats as well,' one commenter wrote. 'I couldn't see it till you added the grass,' added another. While one social media user complained: 'What goat, I could only see the bird.' This illusion works because our brains are primed to recognise patterns in the world around us. Dr Susan Wardle, a psychologist at the National Institutes of Health, told MailOnline: 'The human eye receives noisy, dynamic patterns of light, and it is the human brain that interprets these patterns of light into the meaningful visual experience of objects and scenes that we see.' Usually, our brains get this right, but sometimes mistakes arise in a phenomenon scientists call pareidolia. Pareidolia is the perception of meaningful patterns in inanimate objects or otherwise random information. In humans' evolutionary past, this habit might have conveyed a survival advantage since it helped us spot friends or potential threats. The downside is that our brains tend to tell us that there are faces or patterns even when there aren't any to be found. This is the reason why people often spot Jesus looking out from a piece of burnt toast or see the Virgin Mary in a cloud. In this illusion, your brain's natural pattern-spotting tendencies kick in and impose the image of a goat over the random patterns in the kookaburra's feathers. And, once you've seen it, the image can be difficult to get out of your head. WHAT IS THE CAFÉ WALL OPTICAL ILLUSION? The café wall optical illusion was first described by Richard Gregory, professor of neuropsychology at the University of Bristol, in 1979. When alternating columns of dark and light tiles are placed out of line vertically, they can create the illusion that the rows of horizontal lines taper at one end. The effect depends on the presence of a visible line of gray mortar between the tiles. The illusion was first observed when a member of Professor Gregory's lab noticed an unusual visual effect created by the tiling pattern on the wall of a café at the bottom of St Michael's Hill in Bristol. The café, close to the university, was tiled with alternate rows of offset black and white tiles, with visible mortar lines in between. Diagonal lines are perceived because of the way neurons in the brain interact. Different types of neurons react to the perception of dark and light colours, and because of the placement of the dark and light tiles, different parts of the grout lines are dimmed or brightened in the retina. Where there is a brightness contrast across the grout line, a small scale asymmetry occurs whereby half the dark and light tiles move toward each other forming small wedges. These little wedges are then integrated into long wedges with the brain interpreting the grout line as a sloping line. Professor Gregory's findings surrounding the café wall illusion were first published in a 1979 edition of the journal Perception. The café wall illusion has helped neuropsychologists study the way in which visual information is processed by the brain. The illusion has also been used in graphic design and art applications, as well as architectural applications. The effect is also known as the Munsterberg illusion, as it was previously reported in 1897 by Hugo Munsterberg who referred to it as the 'shifted chequerboard figure.' It has also been called the 'illusion of kindergarten patterns', because it was often seen in the weaving of kindergarten students.
Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
What colour do YOU see? This fire truck isn't actually red - how mind-boggling optical illusion tricks your brain
From the cigar nestled in the brickwork to 'The Dress', many optical illusions have left viewers around the world baffled over the years. But the latest illusion is arguably one of the most bizarre yet. Dr Dean Jackson, a biologist and BBC presenter, has shared a strange illusion on TikTok, which tricks your brain into thinking a fire truck is red. At the start of the video, Dr Jackson shows a picture of a red fire truck on a road. He then adds a cyan filter, before asking what colour you think the fire truck is. While your inital reaction is likely 'red', Dr Jackson explains that the fire truck is actually now grey. 'Red light cannot pass through a cyan filter, it just can't,' he explained. 'So now there is no red light in that picture, I can promise you. And yet your brain is still telling you that it's red.' @beatonthebeeb There is no red in this picture! #opticalillusion #mindgame ♬ original sound - Dean Jackson The strange optical illusion occurs because our brains are confused by what our eyes see. The back of the human eye contains two types of photoreceptor which allow us to respond to light shining in. While 'rods' are sensitive to motion, 'cones' are sensitive to light, with each responding to a different colour. In Dr Jackson's video, the cyan filter only lets through cyan-coloured light, meaning anything else should appear grey. But when our brain recognises that a fire truck is usually red, it can interpret the grey light to appear this way. '[Your brain] is overcompensating for the filter. The parts that you're being told are red are actually this colour,' Dr Jackson explains, as a grey square flashes up on screen. To prove this is the case, Dr Jackson then moves the grey square over the top of the picture, confirming that it's the same colour as the truck. 'There's no red in that picture anymore, it's all gone,' he said. The video has garnered huge attention on TikTok, with hundreds of amazed viewers flocking to the comments. 'That square turned red when you moved it in front of the photo,' one baffled viewer commented. Another added: 'The block and the truck are fading grey and red, grey, red. It keeps going.' And one wrote: 'The grey turned to a red/brown colour as soon as it was in place. stayed grey when it first went through the cyan filter but changed when in place.' In repsonse to these comments, Dr Jackson reassured that the square was not changing colour. 'I promise you it didn't change colour,' he replied to one user. 'It's your brain doing it. The brains are remarkable organ.' WHAT IS THE CAFÉ WALL OPTICAL ILLUSION? The café wall optical illusion was first described by Richard Gregory, professor of neuropsychology at the University of Bristol, in 1979. When alternating columns of dark and light tiles are placed out of line vertically, they can create the illusion that the rows of horizontal lines taper at one end. The effect depends on the presence of a visible line of gray mortar between the tiles. The illusion was first observed when a member of Professor Gregory's lab noticed an unusual visual effect created by the tiling pattern on the wall of a café at the bottom of St Michael's Hill in Bristol. The café, close to the university, was tiled with alternate rows of offset black and white tiles, with visible mortar lines in between. Diagonal lines are perceived because of the way neurons in the brain interact. Different types of neurons react to the perception of dark and light colours, and because of the placement of the dark and light tiles, different parts of the grout lines are dimmed or brightened in the retina. Where there is a brightness contrast across the grout line, a small scale asymmetry occurs whereby half the dark and light tiles move toward each other forming small wedges. These little wedges are then integrated into long wedges with the brain interpreting the grout line as a sloping line. Professor Gregory's findings surrounding the café wall illusion were first published in a 1979 edition of the journal Perception. The café wall illusion has helped neuropsychologists study the way in which visual information is processed by the brain. The illusion has also been used in graphic design and art applications, as well as architectural applications. The effect is also known as the Munsterberg illusion, as it was previously reported in 1897 by Hugo Munsterberg who referred to it as the 'shifted chequerboard figure.' It has also been called the 'illusion of kindergarten patterns', because it was often seen in the weaving of kindergarten students.
