Why can things like optical illusions “trick” our brain, even when you know for a fact what the reality is? Why is “what your brain thinks” not equal to “what you know”?

Question

Why can things like optical illusions “trick” our brain, even when you know for a fact what the reality is? Why is “what your brain thinks” not equal to “what you know”?

In: 18

Answer 1

Brains like to understand what they are seeing. If they don’t understand, they will try to form an understanding based on things it already understands. Our eyes see something, our brain interprets based on familiarity.

This is how we learn.

Imagine a baby who has only had liquids it’s whole life. The baby witnesses mom putting food in her mouth. Baby thinks, “well, I put bottle/breast in my mouth and get food, maybe if I put other things in my mouth, they will be food too.” This results in baby eating new foods. This also results in baby eating non-foods…

This general learning behavior follows us our whole lives.

Keep learning!