Comments on: Müller-Lyer Illusion Proof

By: Hannah Gem

Hannah Gem — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:55:37 +0000

Hi it’s a little old tbh but it is quite funny

By: m4rek

m4rek — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:14:00 +0000

I think that for rose (post #8), the illusion has worked a little too well?

By: kacheek

kacheek — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:04:00 +0000

what?
which two lines are meant to be the same?!?!
soo lost!

By: Cornelius

Cornelius — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:05:00 +0000

I sandwiched the line between 2 windows, then activated the browser window, and the right one shrank while the left one lengthened. Wow!!!

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:23:00 +0000

intererstingly, this illusion only works on people who were raised in carpented societies. That is, people who grew up looking at right angles and square rooms and buildings their whole lives. If you showed this to someone brought up in the fields with no real carpentry in their lives to speak of, they’d just be wondering why you’re confused…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:29:00 +0000

Deb
on 10:14 AM

You need to move the ruler so it starts at zero, otherwise it first appears that the first line is 5 inches long instead of four.
___________________

um... they're centimetres... perhaps that's the real illusion for you deb? :+)

By: Ziddy

Ziddy — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 14:39:00 +0000

I found this image fairly easy to comprehend, unlike most of the stuff on this site ;)

What’s going on, is your eyes are looking at the distance between the two points of the arrows.
What you need to do, is forget about the arrows and look and the length of the lines. You’ll be able to easier see, that they are infact the correct/equal length!

By: hi

hi — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 01:36:00 +0000

this is very cool.

By: killer bees

killer bees — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 01:12:00 +0000

i saw this one in my psychology class, they just had 2 transparencys and moved them over each other to prove it there tho.

still neat

By: Chuzzlewit

Chuzzlewit — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 00:40:00 +0000

These are an example of why witnesses are so unreliable, as any cop will tell you. We see with the brain, not the eye. Which fact gave birth to Blake’s axiom that we must see through, not with the eye, if we are to know truth. These “relative sizes” go against that axiom and are the exception that proves the rule, precisely which makes them a true . . . illusion. Sherlock Holmes brain would simply eliminate the arrows and he’d see the true length of the lines. It’s a matter of the mind training the eye to see what’s really there. Not an easy thing to do: be truly and accurately observant. A fascinating encounter would have been one between the fictional Holmes and the late Great Slydini, who could make you see things that weren’t there and not see things that were.

Of course, once one has seen the “trick”, all bets are off. The Müller-Lyer is an oldie that almost everyone has seen.