GET MORE MIND-BLOWING FUN BY WATCHING
THE NAT GEO KIDS VIDEO SERIES BRAIN GAMES,
OR CHECK OUT THE BOOK.
natgeokids.com/decemberDECEMBER 2019 | JANUARY 2020 • NAT GEO KIDS (^19)
Move your eyes around this image to make it shimmer ( just not for too long—your eyes might get tired!).
BEHIND THE BRAIN
This crazy effect
happens because your
eyes don’t have a strong
image to latch on to.
The narrow, heavily
contrasting lines
confuse the way your
eyes see the bright and
dark areas. That’s why
your brain struggles to
understand the scene—
and why you see a
flickering, shimmering
picture.
BEHIND THE BRAIN
Amazingly, there’s only one shade
of each color! The way your brain
“sees” color is influenced by other
colors nearby, so the overlapping
black and white bars are changing
how you see the other colors. For
instance, look at the three green
stripes. Your brain thinks the area
where the white bars cross over the
right-side stripe is brightly lit, so
that stripe appears brighter. When
the black bars cross over the left-
side stripe, your brain thinks that
section—and therefore that
stripe—is darker.
Check out this picture. Do you
see three different shades of
green, pink, orange, and blue?
YELLOW ALERT
THREE IN ONE