Optical Illusions and Brain Benders

Boggle your grandchildren’s minds (and your own) as you gaze upon pictures that play with your perception — and provide hours of fun. The 16 slides that follow contain the best, most baffling brain benders of all time. Enjoy!

How it works: Known as the Hermann Grid Illusion, this latticework of squares was named after the physiologist who discovered it in 1870. It deceives the brain into seeing gray spots in the intersections where there are none. Focus your eyes directly on one intersection and the gray dot disappears, but as soon as you look away, the dots will sneak back into your range of vision.

How it works: It's challenging, right? While you’re using the right side of your brain to say the color, the left side of your brain tries to make you say the word.

The right answer: In this ambiguous optical illusion, it is possible to perceive the opening of the tube being on the right and left side.

How it works: At first glance, the staircase looks realistic because your brain acknowledges it as three-dimensional, but upon closer inspection, you can see that no such structure could exist in reality. Geneticist Lionel S. Penrose and his son Roger first created "The Eternal Staircase," but artist Maurits Escher popularized it in his works.

Word search: If you tilt your head to the right, you can clearly see that the word Liar makes up the profile.

How it works: The lines make out the faint shape of an E. Your mind interprets an E out of what it sees but there is no actual E on the screen, just a few lines.

If you can only see the old woman: Picture the old woman's eye being the ear and her nose being the jaw line of a young woman looking away.

If you can only see the young woman: Picture the young woman's ear being the eye, her jawline being the large nose, and the necklace being the lips of the older woman, who is facing more directly left.

In this painting by Octavio Ocampo, some say that the hidden images represent the good life that the old couple is looking back on.

How it works: According to scientists, the green color you are seeing is a negative retinal afterimage. Huh? Regardless, the effect is very cool.

It's your eye: While it appears that the beans are moving, they are not. To prove it, stare intently at one bean. It will not move.

Still just your eye: Similar to the coffee beans, the circles in this pattern not moving. It just looks like they are.

Hidden image: If you back away several feet, you should see the face of music legend John Lennon of The Beatles. The slight variances of the black and white colors can hardly be seen up close, but the picture comes into focus when you move away.

How it works: Both lines and both circles are the exact same size. The Müller-Lyer line illusion is named after its creators, as is the Ebbinghaus circle illusion.

How it works: The blue lines are perfectly straight and parallel. The context fools your mind into seeing a bend that isn't there. Use a ruler if you don't believe us!

The answer: Believe it or not, the lines are perfectly straight and parallel to each other. Also, try staring at just one of the blocks. The other blocks appear to be sliding!

How it works: The answer is six. Did you get it wrong? That's because the mind is trained to read for meaning and has a hard time when asked to read for specific letters, especially when those letters are in prepositions like "of."