Human Heart Optical Illusion

One of our Italian friends, named Salvatore spotted an interesting optical illusion printed on the CD cover of the Italian band called Negramaro. It depicts a human heart along with some of its coronaries. The illusion is very simple, yet we have to admit (both me and Salvatore) that it took some time before we could see what it hides. On the other hand, Salvatore’s girlfriend spotted it almost immediately. How about you? How long did it take before you noticed the illusion? BTW, one user reported that when leaving a comment, all he got was a blank screen and wasn’t able to get his words posted. Has this happened to anyone else lately? Your feedback is much appreciated!

112 Replies to “Human Heart Optical Illusion”

    1. Look again, Josh… it’s almost 100 million. Still, pretty impressive. (if only each visitor donate 10 cents…)

    2. i was gonna say, if MOI brought in 1 billion visitors (roughly one sixth of the world population, then the creator would likely be very rich. That kind of traffic warrants expensive advertisements. 100 million may seem close to 1 billion, but there is a very, very long way to go. It will be there some day.

      BTW saw the illusion instantly.

    1. Yeh, the first thing I saw was the head, then I realised that there is a body! :) he is sat down and the coronairies at the bottom are actually legs hanging down :) (I think :P)

  1. Saw it almost immediately, but now I wonder if that is only because you said something was hidden? Would I have recoignized it if I weren’t looking.

    1. @SteveRiese: I was thinking the same thing. It was rather quick to see when you know there’s something more, but if I would’ve seen this album cover at a record store, would I have noticed it, or even paid any attention to it?

      Have to say this is one of my favs. Simple, yet effective.

    1. qwertyuiop spoiler – you only partly right.

      Its actually the full body of a man. Complete with legs, feet, hands, and all.

      The feet are the arteries hanging toward the bottom. from their work your way up to his knees, thats where his elboys are resting. Then keep working your way up to the head, which is the top most part of the actual heart, not arteries. The top arteries are coming out of the head.

      The man is posed in a way that is not unlike that statue called “the thinker: (not sure if thats 100% correct title of the statue). But bascically, the entire body and head is the heart, and the feet and lower legs are the veins hanging down. He is posed hunched over like he is sitting on something, with knees bent, elbows resting on knees, face is resting in his hands

  2. Great site ~ my only thing is that for those of us that are not able to figure out what we should be seeing in any of the illusions don’t know what we are supposed to look for since I never see an answer as to what is hiding in the pictures. Now I know some are so obvious that even a toddler can get it but there are some that I know I haven’t been able to solve. I would suggest putting the answer for each on the page somewhere. Thanks and keep them coming.

    1. That’s a good point, that way you can spend as long as you want looking for the answer and have a place to look when you give up so you’re not left never knowing.

    2. i agree with keith. Some illusions that you post include quite vague captions that sometimes leave us wondering what we are supposed to be seeing, while others are so obvious that i wish you didnt say anything. But really, it is all in our mind, and some of us happen to see it right away, and some of us dont. I agree that you should keep your captions as vague or as obvious as you like, but i hate having to sift through the comments to wonder if what im seeing is all in my head or if its supposed to be like that. Sometimes when its too vague i feel my head tries to force a hidden image that isnt really there, like an image in the clouds or something.

      Also, another problem is that the commentors arent always right, and to boot, you force our comments to be reviewed which means its usually a day before they appear.

      Instead of forcing your visitors to view comments that are old or inccrect, you should include an answer along with your illusions, or at least the ones that have a clear hidden image. Its not pleasing to wonder if my mind is hallucinating a hidden image that really isnt there.

      Also, regarding the policy of reviewing comments. Its truly displeasing. Comments are there for instant gratification, not to be reviewed and posted a day later. Its quite annoying to want to post something only to have readers read about it after the fact when your comment is useless and obsolete.

      Why not apply some language censoring software, along with requiring an account linked to an email. This will all but certainly take out the obnoxious, rude, inappropriate posts. I dont think one person will disagree with me. Your policy of reviewing then posting is old fashioned. Especially since it takes so long for you to post them. There isnt exactly a team of people reviewing them like most sites, which has your post in an hour or less. Your doing them by yourself, and it takes forever. Think about allowing instant comments. It would greatly improve the commrodery of the followers of this site.

      Thanks. Also, i wouldnt post this much junk if you had a way of emailing suggestions, or some sort of idea/suggestion forum. This site desperatley needs a makeover to suite the needs of users demanding instant gratification and response.

  3. Yeah i am following Steve Riese’s train of thought… Whenever i look at an illusion each day, i view the image before reading the text. Today i could not see the reason this pic being classified as an illusion. But as soon as i read the text and had another look the “hidden” pic was revealed instantly.

  4. I can see the crouching man because of your prompting to look closely. This is cool stuff.

  5. The heart and brain are supposed to be connected, from when we were embryos, I think they derive from the same cellular material, so how apt to have the thinker taking lodgings in that lifelike heart, it’s very pretty as well. I like the negative space of the blood vessels within the heart also.

  6. Instantly, easy to see and a good illusion.
    BTW, MOI needs some google ads to get some money.. one billion visitors?

  7. Interesting. I could only see the top half of it as my homepage opened and I saw the person first. As soon as I scrolled down a bit I realized what had been done. One of the best ever.

  8. Wow! Very simple design and yet you can actually see a lot the more you look. I initially saw the heart in the mini version I get on iGoogle but larger I saw roses then after reading the comments I could see the man (similar to The Thinker). I love these sort of images :-)

  9. Yeah.. at first I thought it was T-Rex, but after staring at it …. it S L O W L Y .. came into focus, then after reading a few captions which confirmed my (burning) eyes..which made me “think” about the other possibilities.

  10. Didn’t see anything until I read I was supposed to see something. Then about 5 seconds. I was focusing first on the gray/white areas that dissected the heart. Nicely done.

  11. While I can see the figure of a human ( man with head where the four stylized vains come into the left ventrical) I at first saw it as the head of a Moose or perhaps a T-Rex. I do like the 3-D aspecat of the art.

    1. is it spposed to be man from the sculpture “the thinker”? i can the the head and body and abs and i sort of see tthe arm coming toward the chin

  12. dang tons of posts already. I havent had any problems with posting, except for the one time I tried to post a picture. You should put detailed info on how to do that somewhere cuz it took me three attempts :) as for the illusion, cool. kinda hard to tell much more than the head, but still neat.

  13. I saw him before i saw the heart! I was thinking maybe he was supposed to be an antlered man or he had the opposite of a halo. I saw the heart after i scrolled down enough to get the whole image, but i would never have guessed that it was a 2d design, I thought it was a photo of a 3d object. I really like the red they use. Please keep on posting these wonderful illusions!

  14. Thanks so much for the “spoiler” posts. I needed it on that one. Occupational hazard (cardiac cath lab) I could NOT see anything but the heart

  15. i saw it as soon as i saw the picture. i like to look for the illusion before i read the description. so i was rather surprised to see that it had taken others so long. it could possibly be one of those right brain left brain things. im not really sure.

    nya~

  16. I seen it instantly as soon as I clicked on the full blow up version. After that I seen it widget size. But only till after. Great piece.

  17. wow!!! Impressive!! But I wouldn’t have been able to have seen it if I had not known that there was something hidden in the illusion!! Maybe it’s a girl thing;) coz like you said Salvatores girlfriend spotted it almost immediatly???

  18. I seen the man both times. And as for Nikolai. Yes that is his whole body. His elbows are resting on his knees. and his feet are dangling. This was an excellent illusion. Keep them coming.

  19. it took me two days to find the thinker, before that I found:
    A turtle sad,
    Two monsters kissing,
    A bird,
    A bunny,

  20. I saw it as soon as I clicked on the screen to see what it said about the picture. I bald man sitting with his fist agenst his head with his elbow on his knees with his legs hanging. But I will admit I didn’t see his legs until I read someones post. LOL Great picture.

  21. the lines in and out of the heart form a tree (the things sticking out below the heart are roots the center of the heart is the trunk and branches and the things sticking out of the top are the upper branches)

  22. I see it!! It took me like 4 days, but I finally see, that the smallish lump of white lines in the top left corner makes a face outline!!!

  23. 0MG !! I couldn’t find it and then i just glanced at it 1 last time and bam ! It just prosscesed in my mind and I saw it and now whenever i look at it its like i never see the heart again

  24. the things hangin fron the bottom of the heart are legs BTW I SAW IT RIGHT AWAY
    p.s. same with cassie, and if u press the space botton in front of a word or letter it dispears well at least it does when i write a comment

  25. The thinker took me about 11 seconds and I can’t load the scary optical illusion its jst a white screen

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