Is that black hole getting bigger?! This optical illusion was created from a team of scientists, and a new paper has just been released looking at how it works. Read more: 📷: Laeng et al., Front. Hum. Neurosci., 2022
, since the observer is neither moving forward nor entering any dark space, such a cost is likely to be less severe than if there were no corrections when an observer really moved forward into a dark space."The first study to analyze this optical illusion explored how the color of the hole and the surrounding dots affect our mental and physiological responses.
Tracking the eye movements of participants revealed their pupils were unconsciously dilating at the sight of the black hole.
"Our results show that pupils' dilation or contraction reflex is not a closed-loop mechanism, like a photocell opening a door, impervious to any other information than the actual amount of light stimulating the photoreceptor,""Rather, the eye adjusts to perceived and even imagined light, not simply to physical energy."