The success of this illusion depends on your ability to focus and not be distracted. This illusion can be therefore used to determine severity of ADHD in an individual or conversely your ability to focus and hold your attention despite distractions.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – or ADHD – is thought to be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain that affects attention, concentration and impulsivity.

In this illusion you must fixate on the flashing spot in the middle of the screen. As you stare at the spot the surrounding yellow spots will gradually vanish from your consciousness one by one. As soon as you let your eyes wander the effect is broken and the dots reappear. So you must focus and fixate on the flashing spot to make the dots vanish.

If you can only make 1 or 2 of the spots vanish you are easily distracted and find it difficult to hold your attention for long. Individuals diagnosed with ADHD are rarely capable of making all the dots vanish; in severe cases the individual does not observe the disappearance of any dots at all.

If you can make all the spots vanish you have a normal attention span.

However, if you can make all the spots vanish for more than five seconds your ability to hold your attention is truly extraordinary.

It is thought that only 1 in 100,000 people have the power of mind to make all the dots vanish for 10 seconds or more.

An explanation for motion induced blindness…
The human brain is the most complex system in the known universe. Both consciously and subconsciously it processes a multitude of tasks simultaneously. Such intense processing requires a considerable amount of energy. In order to reduce its power consumption the human brain has developed a few tricks and shortcuts. For the most part these tricks work flawlessly and they serve us well in life, however, optical illusions, such as motion-induced blindness, are special cases which reveal where corners are being cut by the brain.
It’s seems that motion induced blindness is an evolutionary development that goes back at least to the dinosaurs. If you are a creature that is being preyed upon, then generally you have no need to be concerned about static objects; stones and plants are not going to hunt you down and eat you. So in a world where predators pounce the brain has evolved to keep moving objects at the forefront of our perception, whereas static objects quite literally dissolve out of our consciousness. This conserves precious brain processing energy for the more important task of survival. Indeed the hunting tactics of many predators have adapted to the fact that static things go unnoticed; cats stalk their prey keeping perfectly still when they think they’ve been rumbled, snakes and spiders remain motionless until their prey is close enough for the lightning strike.
This power saving shortcut is just as useful for predators as their prey. A hawk soaring above grassland is not concerned with the static scenery but is most interested in the scuttle of a tiny mouse. Huge savings in mental processing can be made if the brain only processes that which scurries.
It seems that our early ancestors, as both the hunter and the hunted, have evolved to make these mental energy-saving short-cuts too. So in the case of this illusion, the moving background always has our attention but the static dots, even though they are bright yellow, dissolve out of consciousness.

More info…

More optical illusions: http://www.echalk.co.uk/amusements/OpticalIllusions/illusions.html

More info about ADHD: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx

More info about motion-induced blindness: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion-induced_blindness

Email This Post Email This Post