10 Mind Melting Illusions (And Exactly How They Work)

2. Peripheral Vision Face Warp

Focus on the cross in the centre of the screen, and pretty soon, all of those beautiful celebrity faces warp into the grotesque caricatures that you get drawn on a family holiday to Skegness.

Flicking your eyes from side to side to catch them in the act will reveal that the faces are actually normal, so why is your brain turning the great and good of Hollywood into gargoyles?

It's due to the power, or lack thereof, of your peripheral vision.

Peripheral vision is really great at spotting movement - handy for scuppering sneaking predators - by it's not all that hot on detail. As such, you brain relies on its age-old trip of just filling in the gaps with wild imagination. Each face has a different expression on it and, rather than think that there are multiple faces flicking past (something that is unlikely in the real world), your brain assumes that they're all one face with changing expressions, eventually building it up into a single cartoonish monstrosity.