Peripheral drift illusions are caused by anomalies occuring in peripheral vision processing.

Illusory motion tends to appear in the directions from a black region to an adjacent dark-grey region or in the direction from a white region to an adjacent light-grey region.

The peripheral drift illusion is enhanced by stepwise luminance profiles.

The illusion is also enhanced by fragmented or curved edges

Larger images have more effect.

courtesy of Akiyoshi Kitaoka©

courtesy of Akiyoshi Kitaoka©

The distortion is produced by the lined pattern on the background, that simulates a perspective design, and creates a false impression of depth.

courtesy of Akiyoshi Kitaoka©

courtesy of Akiyoshi Kitaoka©

Discoverd by Yoram Bonneh. Motion-induced blindness doesn't seem to be well understood. This university website is investigating the connection of this illusion to left and right brain time intervals.

Stare at any one of the yellow dots and time the intervals over which the other yellow dots disappear

reference University of Queensland

Try to name the colours below in the shortest time possible...
It takes about twice as long to name the colours below as it would if they were named properly.
Discovered by J. Ridley Stroop in the 1930's

2 explanations:

1. Speed of Processing Theory: the interference occurs because words are read faster than colors are named.
2. Selective Attention Theory: the interference occurs because naming colors requires more attention than reading words.

Michael Bach

Michael Bach's site contains a vast amount of illusions, most of them are interactive and explanations given when possible. All illusions are commented and categorised.

akitaoka artworks

Most of my examples have been borrowed from this website. The images on this site are very high quality but may take a long time to download on low bandwidth.