Disappearing Yellow Dots Illusion

I had this illusion on my laptop for quite some time now. It looks very simple, but worked for me only yesterday. If you concentrate hard enough on the image center, after a while all three yellow dots will disappear! Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself! It may take some time and concentration, but the effect is amazing. Similar to “Find your blind spot” illusion. Remember that one?

Anyway, I just finished designing cool WordPress theme, and bought great hosting, the only thing I need just now is someone to help me transfer all the posts from this site automatically, and import them to Wordpess blog. Anyone has some experience? The “Import” button in wordpress 2.2 doesn’t work. I think it has something to do with blogger changing RSS feed recently. I would really appreciate all the information I can get.


105 Replies to “Disappearing Yellow Dots Illusion”

  1. Nice. :) I’ve so far gotten only 2 to disappear, but I’m sure if I worked harder, I’d get all three. It seems to me that the person made it deliberately hard, as the swirling blue dots distract the eye from staying focused on the center. :P

  2. Actually, it is the blue dots swirling that make it possible for the yellow to “disappear”. Your brain percieves the yellow dots to be unimportant to the whole picture, therefore dismissing the yellow dots.

    COOL though!

  3. I have found that it helps to put my cursor in the middle of the image and look at it so I don’t get distracted quite as easily. It gives a focal point to look at. :-)

  4. I got all of them to disapear. So sorry that I can’t help you out with that wordpress thing, but good luck anyways =)

  5. was bit difficult for me to concentrate on the centre so I tried concentrating on one of the yellow dots and after sometime the others disappeared!

  6. ============================Here is some help ===========================

    Save the yellowdotdisappear42893.gif to your desktop (right klik and “save as…”). Open it with window-viewer for faxes and images. In the bottom bar there is an option to view the image as a slideshow. Hit the button and hit pauze. Now your whole screes is black and you see only the dots – no distraction.

    I open every image like this to have a clear and undistraced view!

    Hope it helps…

  7. I have one word for this SWEET!

    The one on the top left easily disappeared and did so first, and the other two disappeared at the same time. Anyone have the same experience?

    It’s amazing how as soon as you move your eyes from the center that the yellow dots immediately come back.

    What a cool illusion!

  8. I cant get the image to appear, it usually does, though. Btw, I’m using Safari for Windows as my browser. It has definately fully loaded though.

  9. If you look closely you can see that the blue dots disappear as they approach the yellow dots… this has something to do with how it works I’m sure =]

  10. this is really cool, they disapeared for me one or two at a time, but they all disapeared at last! must be something about hte blue dots

  11. I do this all the time with random small objects when I’m bored in class or something. It really can be done anywhere, the blue dots aren’t necessary, that fact that they are there just makes it more impressive. With practice, you can even kind of look around with the certain object gone.

  12. That is really cool, at first I couldn’t focus on the middle because the blue dots were really distracting so I put my cursor in the middle of the image and in 5 seconds the 3 yellow dots disappeared.

    Really cool illusion.

  13. oh wow!! all 3 of them disappear at the same time!! when i tried it the 2nd time, 2 of them disappeared..its freaking cool…lol =]

  14. The trick is to ignore the blue swirling around dots. If you can focus entirely on the black background (which I’m sure our brain is telling us is empty space) then your brain fills in the details from your peripheral vision with what it assumes is there… ie: nothing!

    Pretty weird…

  15. I don’t believe anonymous commentor #6 has it right. If the brain sees the yellow dots as irrelevent, then they wouldn’t reappear so easily when your eyes shift slightly. My understanding is you continue to see the blue dots because they are registering on the retina in different places. The yellow dots, on the other hand, are being “seen” on only three fixed areas of the retina, fatiguing the nerves at those spots, so their firing is dampened.
    Once your eyes shift, other nerves in the retina respond, making them visible again, until you fatigue those nerves by staring.

  16. I think photoreceptor fatigue plays a role. When I stare at a cursor in the center, the cursor and yellow dots start to “ooze” a darker black shadow. They also blink off and on.
    Does anyone else get a shadow effect?

  17. Hey this is really cool! I tried it with one of my friends and it worked! I don’t normally get illusions but this one is rally cool and I saw it right away.

    It is really cool check it out!

  18. This test was developed to measure the minds ability to switch between its left and right hemispheres. The more often the dots disappear, the more “artistic” or “creative” your mind is. Scientists and mathematician types supposedly are better at focusing and staying in one region of the brain, while artists and musicians switch faster and therefor e see more disappearances of the dots. The television show where I learned this even stated that some buddhist monk could control his mind so much through meditation, that he could make the dots disappear indefinitely!

  19. Would people STOP writing how the trick works on this site?? I mean, it’s entertainment, not a science project you have to analyze every freakin’ bit of it!! Sorry, it gets on my nerves when someone tells me how something is done.
    Btw love the illusion!! ^.^

  20. if you put your finger somewhere in the black part like where the dots are then you can get your finger to disaper too!!!!!
    \

  21. Wow. Freakin cool. But what do the blue dots have anything to do? Basically it can just be with the blackness and the yellow dots.

  22. If you look at everyday objects you can get even wierder things to happen, I have a felt dart board and if i stare at it long enough, I can get it to look as if its only a black peice of meterial. Its awsome.

  23. i stared at one of the dots and made the others dissapear, then i read the description and got the yellow dots to dissapear in about 5 seconds or so

    -finn

  24. its easy to make yellow ones disappear but then my focus starts wondering off with the blue ones and the yellow ones appear again.

  25. It’s difficult to get all three to disappear! When one disappears it’s easy to lose concentration and it appears again. But I did manage it a couple of times, yay!

  26. OMG that was so weird! I was looking at it and they just turned a reddish color, so I looked at the comments and went back and as soon as I looked at them, they disappeared! Now I can do it more easily :)

  27. One would suppose Aurora101 that this is the very reason the designer keeps the comments under the illusion so as NOT to give it away completely.

    Imagine coming to this fabulous site and never being able to participate! Also remember please, that this site is a conglomerate of one individual utilizing the art, science, skills, and treasures of a lot. I’ve been with this site now since 6 or 7 years ago…and it still remains my ‘All Time Favorite Site’ Cheers!

  28. The top 2 dots disappeared within few seconds but the lower one did not.. Maybe because I was too conscious…

    Wonderful illusion!

  29. that is awesome :D reallyy awesomeee x and thanks to the people who explained how it worked its realy interesting :D woo im so pround,lmaooo xxxx

  30. COOL! yepeey! i made them 3 disappear! but just for a while because you know ..the amusement of making it disappear made u look at the dots and it showed up again ..* sigh
    but anyway. great illusion! it lessen my head ache :P

  31. It kinda sucks, cuz a lot of these types of illusions don’t work for me, because I have congenital nystagmus (a condition where my eyes move involuntarily back and forth). =/

  32. HOLY F***EN S**T!!!!!!!! It really bl**dy works!!!! And usually, I am a full-on big disbeliever of such things like this. I always say or think to myself, “Nah, it’ll never happen!!” F**K, was I wrong this time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  33. Haha, that is quite creepy. If you concentrate on the movement of the blue dots and forget about trying to make the yellow ones disappear, then it is easier to make them disappear, they also disappear for good!!!

  34. I can only make the top 2 disappear and only for a second… the left one stays gone, but the right one flashes on and off.

  35. I feel like this has to do with the brain’s ability to tune out a constant stimulus so that only the changing blue dots are seen because the yellow dots present no new information

  36. wow it is really cool!!! I thought at first that it was never going to happen because i never believe in these things but i think this has just changed my mind completly!!!! I got all three to vanish!!!!!!!!!

  37. I can’t make the dots disappear… :(
    But I can make them multiply!
    I see 5 dots, when you connect them you get a letter W

  38. Just when I asked myself, how can these three dots disappear they were gone.

    It seems like that our brain notices when random dots or points move in a certain “structure” It seemed to me like the blue dots were some kind of 3D model which kept turning and all I saw was that as the yellow dots didn’t belong to the structure, they were gone.. How can some thought be so difficult to explain?? Ugh

  39. great… took a couple of goes but got it, as i kept going back to see the one/two that went missing, ahhh

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