August 18, 2025 • 18 mins
Autostereograms, better known as "Magic Eye" puzzles, are a unique 2D art in which repeated images create a 3D image, but you have to focus your eyes in just the right way to see it. We explain the history of this illusion, how it works, and how to see it. Futher, we explain why you see it as either 3D or inverted. Do you see the illusion?
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Links and References:
- https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/puzzles/eye-puzzles.htm?s1sid=4smf3pkhna4lnqzen1jh9sb0&srch_tag=dp5hyoro5ijjte5xvqeo4asj5xls3paw
- https://www.clarkeeye.com/the-science-behind-magic-eye-illusions#:~:text=A%20Magic%20Eye%20image%20starts,brain%20perceives%20the%20hidden%20picture.*
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to Why We Do what we Do. Welcome
to Why We Do what we Do?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Mini.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm your host Abraham, and I'm your host Shane. We
are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that
humans and non human animals do, and sometimes we talk
about art that we make that makes our brains go fuzzy.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yes, and I love this topic so much because it
is so quintessential nineties. It feels like I feel like
this was like ever present, and I'm super starked to
get into it.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Fact, and also feel like it never quite went away
in all reality of things. Yeah, So I realize that
we have not even introduced our topic. And before I
do that, like I'm going to leave you all hanging
on the edge here, what I would like to say
is that thank you for joining us. I hope that
you enjoy what you hear in this discussion today, and
if you didn't already look at the title, you probably
do know what we're talking about otherwise, But if you
(01:02):
are joining us for the first time, or if you're returning,
then we're happy that you are here. We hope that
you continue to come back and glad that you are
sticking around. If you are coming back, and if you
like to support what we do, you can leave us
a rating and a review. Click those five stars, say
some nice words. All of that helps us. You can
also tell a friend like and subscribe, join us on Patreon.
I'll talk more about the ways that you can support
us at the end of this discussion. But as I
(01:24):
said at the top, this is a mini which means
it's short. We're just going to do a quick discussion
of this topic and then let you go about the
rest of your day until we hit you with some big,
long topic a few days from now, because we release
our full length episodes on Wednesdays, Yes we do. So
this is a discussion about magic eye pictures and illusions
(01:45):
or puzzles other words that you can put next to
that and have that makes some amount of sense to you.
But as you said, Shane, this is kind of a
This feels very nineties, although it also never really went away.
But we're talking about these magic ie illusions and if
you're not familiar with these and how but.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
This is how'd you miss that boat?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Essentially an image when if you look at it in
a very particular way, it creates a three D picture
that you can see that it feels like it's coming
right out of the page. Yes, and we'll talk about
how all that works. And these are called magic eye
and we want to talk about how they work. Why
do we enjoy them some extent? And are they bad
(02:25):
for your eyes?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I remember doing these as a kid, and I always
had a problem with them because supposedly you're supposed to
see a three D image emerge coming out of the page,
and I can never see that. It always sunk in
for me, so like you would do the opposite.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Effect that we'll actually discuss that. Okay, good, okay, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I get answers finally, because I was so so concerned
about that. So yeah, okay, all right, let's get into
it then. So magic eye puzzles are wildly colorful flat
images that, when looked at in a particular way, result
in the illusion a three D image inside of the
picture or emerging from it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yes, it kind of just looks like so many colors,
almost like white noise, visualized in a way where it's
just like, yes, a whole bunch of shapes repeated on
a page. And actually turns out they don't need to
be that small. You can have actually fairly large images
and still be able to get away with this. But
before we even get into the magic eye illusions themselves,
(03:27):
let's go back. It's worth understanding the history here because
people have been attempting to create sort of a three
D like image in art for a while, and there
was this thing called a stereoscope that was discovered as
having been invented sometime in or prior to the eighteen hundreds,
and this was a way to create three D illusions
of pictures. And the stereoscope required the user to look
(03:50):
through lenses and sort of a wooden sort of pseudo
goggles almost they look like goggles, but they're made of woods,
so they're very rigid. They sit on your face. They've
got these lenses in them, and then there are two
different pictures for each lens. It's the same picture, but
slightly different angles for each picture, so like one of
them was slightly to the left and one of them
(04:10):
was slightly to the right. Pages barely just barely off
from each other, but looking at it through these lenses
made it appear as though there was just a single image,
but that it had more depth than should have been
possible by looking at that image. It sort of made
it look like you had an image where it had
depth to it, even though it was just an image,
and it was because you were looking at two images
(04:30):
that were so close that through these lenses it looked
like one. But it created the illusion of depth.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
If that makes sense, Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now, doctor
Bella Jueliz Julie's something like that, something like that discovered
a way to use computers to generate simple two D
images that could create a three D illusion, and these
were called auto stereograms.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yes, up to this point, researchers believed that the perception
of depth lay within our eyeballs, specifically, like our eyeballs
were what did it? But j this is work inspired
a whole new line of research that instead concluded that
three D vision, this ability for us to detect things
in three D space, must be happening in our brains
(05:11):
because like, there weren't actual three D images to see
or even like tricks like lenses that would create them.
This is just a flat picture, just a flat picture,
and all of a sudden you can see what appears
to be a three D image on that picture.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
So he and a student created the first ever image
that could be seen in three D without the use
of special glasses or other equipment. They started with random
dots and patterns of relatively uniform size, and from this
there came three general forms of illusions random dots, random text,
and texture. But these were generally black and white.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yes, Now, the way that these work this I had
to like look into this because I was finding unsatisfactory descriptions.
But essentially what happens is you have just a complex
array of repeating patterns and shapes and usually any more colors, okay,
and around this picture there is a slight, almost imperceptible
(06:07):
shift in the images in these repeating patterns, such that
when the eyes are relaxed, you're sort of looking past
the picture or through the picture. In a way. What
you do is you see the small shifts in the color.
We start to perceive them as depth, We see them
as shadows. Essentially, that allows some designed image in the
(06:29):
art to appear as a three D shape coming out
of or hovering in front of the image of the background,
which is the sort of repeated image. Sure, that is
the general experience of this, and we will talk about
the perception of seeing it instead look like an indentation
here in a moment. But yeah, this is essentially the
way that they work is like there's just these very small,
(06:52):
almost imperceptible changes in the image of these repeated patterns,
where like just those small shifts in the pattern create
what appears to our eyes to be shadow edges, which
creates the illusion of depth, so that if you're looking
at it just the right way, it looks like like
you can actually see the image sort of pop out.
(07:13):
Otherwise it just looks like nothing. You just look at
like a whole bunch of repeated pattern and an image
no idea what it is.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, it looks a little bit nebulous and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I wish that, like we're talking about imperceivable patterns, Like
I wish ads were imperceivable. All right, So we are
back and we're talking about this magic eye thing. In
nineteen ninety one, a year that Nevermind dropped and destroyed
(07:43):
hair Metal, and then that's the year punk broke if
you will, a guy named Tom Batchier Batchie Bassier Sure
and artist Sherry Smith teamed up to leverage the new
color and sophisticated technology afforded by computers and created the
brand Magic Eye. So just so everybody is aware Magic
Eye is an actual brand. It's not because this this
(08:03):
existed before Magic Eye showed up, Yeah, at least on
some level.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah. Essentially they were these like autostereogram illusions, which is
a very catchy name and I don't understand how it
didn't catch.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
On, Yeah just rolls off the top.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But calling it Magic Eye like that that became pretty
much universal, almost like like calling a tissue of Kleenex
in that in.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
That way, or calling a band aid a band aid
exactly a band aid.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's the bandage.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, like some kind of medical bandage, rap band aid,
uh huh yeah, which also like then it worked its
way into metaphorical context like rip the band aid off,
Like there's like sugubiquitous term. They could not be happier
about that. Thanks capitalism anyway, now thinking about this, like
this is sort of the why we enjoyed these. I
think part of the appeal of Magic Eye visual puzzles
(08:49):
is that they cannot be instantly seen, like you have
to work for it. Yeah, so there's kind of a
game like element if you're around other people and trying
to be the first to see the image it gives
you privileged inform that others don't have. And of course,
even if there's not other people around, there's still simply
the fun of solving a challenging puzzle, like you just
were able to work through it and make it happen,
(09:10):
and like that can be its own sort of reward.
And so I can sort of see the game like
nature of this being a challenge because it's not so easy,
I think is very appealing and feels like a form
of play for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, and it's important to understand that this requires two
working eyes. Because our eyes have slightly different angles from
which to view objects, we get enough information to behave
with respect to the field of depth that is created
by having two side by side visual inputs. Three D
images exploit the history of fluency developed with dual vision
to allow most people in the world to respond to
visual stimuli or visual information similar to one one another,
(09:47):
although not identical. So basically, simply put, because our eyes
effectively just have two different views of the world, we
need that. That's like an essential prerequisite to be able
to see the three D images in these autostereo.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And we have to have some fluency with that, like,
there is some evidence that shows that, like people who
are born without vision or lose their vision early on,
even if they recover it later, they will struggle to
be able to use the stereo vision that we are
otherwise accustomed to, so like our ability to and also
like young young babies also like their vision kind of sucks.
Like we are our brains come equipped for us to
(10:20):
learn to process visual information, but we do learn it,
like we do learn those things, and so this is
like fluency with behaving with respect to visual information is
an aspect of our learning and development early on, and
that this essentially exploits that fluency because we're sort of
used to responding to things in this way. Yeah, okay,
so here's the how too portion of this. If you're
(10:41):
someone who is trying to look at a three D image,
I looked at so many of these in preparation for this.
I like my eyes were actually starting to get a
little bit fatigued because I was like, I hadn't done
this in a long time, and I was like, does
this work on a computer screen? Totally does By the way,
any flat surface is totally fine.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Nice, all right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
The recommendation generally is to try and relax your eyes
and look past the image. Like the image is right
in front of you, but you want to try and
visualize as if you're looking through it to something behind it.
Try and imagine I'm focusing on a point at some
place behind the image, even just six inches past the image.
Just try me looking past it. I find that the
(11:18):
more the further past it I look, the easier, the
more quickly it comes to me. So like, just try
and look all the way past it. Honestly, like when
I'm doing it, my image is my vision is so
blurry relative to the image because I'm looking so far
past it that like it almost looks like it's double
image for a second. Sure, and this can be tricky.
We naturally want to try and focus on the image,
(11:40):
so it takes practice influency to build the skill to
recognize the feeling of how you focus your eyes to
expose the hidden images. And so yeah, I've sort of,
like as I said, I've done this a couple different ways.
We'll talk about it, but like that's my way. Is
I sort of like I guess you could say I'm
focusing on the point. In a difference, it's more like
I'm allowing my eyes to become completely unfocused as more
(12:02):
like it, like I just allow them to get super blurry.
And if you can sort of just imagine you're just
not focusing on anything, but you're also not really moving
your eyes around. It's kind of hard to do, but
if you do it like that is the strategy that
I use. And a lot of people do this sort
of look past that thing, and I do that as well,
but like mine's mostly like I just unFocus my eyes.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, that's so funny because I was always taught to
cross your eyes.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
That you're supposed to cross your eyes and then pull
out and then you can see it.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
That's actually why you see the inverted image.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Ah oh okay, so yeah, so we're right, we're right
about to get there.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I'll let you take this next point here.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Okay, all right, all right.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So, as Abraham said, this could take a while to learn,
and so people never really figure it out. So another
method is to cross your eyes like I did, and
this creates a focal point in front of the picture
that can thus find depth in the lines in the image. However,
this will create an inverted image like I have seen
my entire life, and I thought something was wrong with me. No,
my entire life, I was so concerned. Rather than it
(12:57):
looking like it's popping out of the picture, it looks
like it's cut out of the image, like a silhouette,
or like sinking into the image, And is what I
have experienced. That has been my experience with Magic Guy
posters and Magic Guy images. My entire life. I thought,
I thought that my brain was broken. So thank you
for giving me the letting me know what happened here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It has entirely to do with where the focal point is,
because it then changes the perception of the lines as
them being shadows and like creating depth. So if the
focal point is in front of the picture, then the
lines look like they're moving away from you, and versus
if you focal point is behind the picture, it looks
like they're coming towards you. It's kind of a backwards
way of thinking about it, but that's how it works.
And because like I've had the same experience where I
(13:35):
also figured out that a very quick way to see
it is to cross your eyes, but it creates an
inverted image. Yeah, and so I prefer generally to go
with the like unfocused vision way of seeing it because
the feeling about popping out feels like it has more texture,
and I feel like I usually get a clearer look
at the picture too. But you can do the cross
eyed version of it. It will work, that's wild. Another
(13:56):
strategy is if the image is behind glass or if
it's printed on glossy paper, you can try and find
a position so that there is a glare on the
image and focus on the glare. That can again help
you relax your focus to see the hidden image that
grabs your attention. But again, because your focal point will
be in front of the image, you'll likely get the
inverted image by doing that trick.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Another trick listed is to look at two side by
side images until they start to merge into your vision,
and then you can look around the image to see
the three D art within those and.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Then the final recommendation and this is how I used
to do it before I could start doing it by
just unfocusing my eyes, is to hold the image close
to your face, like so close that it's basically touching
your nose, and at that distance it's too close for
you to focus on the image, so you're kind of
forced to look past it. And then you slowly pull
back while trying to maintain that lack of focus and
eventually like it'll sort of snap into view or like
(14:44):
fuzz into view and your image and that can help
you start to teach you how to create the relaxed
focus that allows the depth lines to pop out.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
So if you're not seeing the image, it can be
frustrating and probably feel like people making it up, at
least to some of the time. So we're really sorry
for those of you who have to deal with this.
It's not fun to be on the receiving end of that.
But if you're able to figure this out, it is fun.
You're not missing the greatest thing on earth. It can
be moderately entertaining, and it could be a way that
you can kind of like commiserate with folks. So like
(15:13):
that's kind of a fun experience to have around these.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I just want to say, like, you know, it's
a bummer, but like you're also not missing like that
big of a thing, and sorry, you don't get to
say it. It's cool, I guess. But it's like a gimmick,
a novelty gimmick, so right, exactly, all right, as far
as this being like how this relates to the quality
of your vision in your eyes. Generally, research scenes to
suggest that these are pretty benign. If you spend a
(15:36):
lot of time doing it, you might start to experience
eye strain or stu or like struggle focusing your vision
clearly again. And if that happens, take a break, stop
doing what you're doing. You might want to consult your
eye doctor if you're really having trouble. If you are
really having trouble, you'll probably also have to have your
friend who wasn't also starting in a magic guy help
drive you to your appointment if you're because you don't
want to be driving away focus. Sure, yes, if you
(15:59):
are experiencing that love of distress from this, to go
see an eye doctor. But generally speaking, the research has
shown that like, you're not going to see permanent damage
from this. It's not really going to hurt you in
any way right now.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Some suggest that it may even be helpful by allowing
you to practice coordinating your eyes and working together, and
by practicing relaxations. So like, these are just I think,
you know, when I try to look at a magic eye,
like I feel like I have some sense of being
able to relax my eyes and like relax my focus
and kind of do that, and it's one of those
things where you start to kind of get like a
perception of what that feels. Like it's worth just practicing
(16:31):
that just for the sake of like understanding your body better.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, yeah, very much. So. It's it's like I learned
to flare my nostrils and it was just by like
I practiced doing things with my face until I was
planning my nostrils and then I learned what that muscle
felt like, and now I can control it. Yeah, but
like that took practice, like I had to figure it out.
So the sort of final point here is just don't
overdo it, Like you know, as far as health goes,
like respond to your body's cues. It seems like there
is an aspect of this that might be somewhat beneficial.
(16:56):
Plus they're fun, but they aren't for everyone. And if
you don't do it, it's not like you we're missing
out on some critical feature of development that would have
your eyes be a lot better than they are. Both
of us were classes and we've done magic guys, so
certainly didn't prevent us from good reaching this point right,
but we count ran along on this mini So that's
magic eye images, illusions, puzzles and how they work. If
(17:16):
you would like to tell us about those things you
can't reach us, you can email us directly info at
wwdwwdpodcast dot com or on the social media platforms we
do look y look forward to hearing from you. Join
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(17:40):
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at least sometimes feel compelled to pick it up. Thank
(18:02):
you so much to my team of people to help
make this episode this podcast it all happen. Is there
anything that I misred that you'd like to add before
we wrap up this mini?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Uh No, I think that covers it perfect.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Thank you for recording with me today, Shane. Thank you
to everyone who is listening. I think that is the
way I have to say about this. This is Abraham
and this is a Shane. Why We Do what we
Do mini is out.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
we hope you have an awesome day.
You're listening to Why We Do what we Do. Welcome
to Why We Do what we Do?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Mini.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I'm your host Abraham, and I'm your host Shane. We
are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things that
humans and non human animals do, and sometimes we talk
about art that we make that makes our brains go fuzzy.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yes, and I love this topic so much because it
is so quintessential nineties. It feels like I feel like
this was like ever present, and I'm super starked to
get into it.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Fact, and also feel like it never quite went away
in all reality of things. Yeah, So I realize that
we have not even introduced our topic. And before I
do that, like I'm going to leave you all hanging
on the edge here, what I would like to say
is that thank you for joining us. I hope that
you enjoy what you hear in this discussion today, and
if you didn't already look at the title, you probably
do know what we're talking about otherwise, But if you
(01:02):
are joining us for the first time, or if you're returning,
then we're happy that you are here. We hope that
you continue to come back and glad that you are
sticking around. If you are coming back, and if you
like to support what we do, you can leave us
a rating and a review. Click those five stars, say
some nice words. All of that helps us. You can
also tell a friend like and subscribe, join us on Patreon.
I'll talk more about the ways that you can support
us at the end of this discussion. But as I
(01:24):
said at the top, this is a mini which means
it's short. We're just going to do a quick discussion
of this topic and then let you go about the
rest of your day until we hit you with some big,
long topic a few days from now, because we release
our full length episodes on Wednesdays, Yes we do. So
this is a discussion about magic eye pictures and illusions
(01:45):
or puzzles other words that you can put next to
that and have that makes some amount of sense to you.
But as you said, Shane, this is kind of a
This feels very nineties, although it also never really went away.
But we're talking about these magic ie illusions and if
you're not familiar with these and how but.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
This is how'd you miss that boat?
Speaker 1 (02:05):
Essentially an image when if you look at it in
a very particular way, it creates a three D picture
that you can see that it feels like it's coming
right out of the page. Yes, and we'll talk about
how all that works. And these are called magic eye
and we want to talk about how they work. Why
do we enjoy them some extent? And are they bad
(02:25):
for your eyes?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I remember doing these as a kid, and I always
had a problem with them because supposedly you're supposed to
see a three D image emerge coming out of the page,
and I can never see that. It always sunk in
for me, so like you would do the opposite.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Effect that we'll actually discuss that. Okay, good, okay, thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
I get answers finally, because I was so so concerned
about that. So yeah, okay, all right, let's get into
it then. So magic eye puzzles are wildly colorful flat
images that, when looked at in a particular way, result
in the illusion a three D image inside of the
picture or emerging from it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yes, it kind of just looks like so many colors,
almost like white noise, visualized in a way where it's
just like, yes, a whole bunch of shapes repeated on
a page. And actually turns out they don't need to
be that small. You can have actually fairly large images
and still be able to get away with this. But
before we even get into the magic eye illusions themselves,
(03:27):
let's go back. It's worth understanding the history here because
people have been attempting to create sort of a three
D like image in art for a while, and there
was this thing called a stereoscope that was discovered as
having been invented sometime in or prior to the eighteen hundreds,
and this was a way to create three D illusions
of pictures. And the stereoscope required the user to look
(03:50):
through lenses and sort of a wooden sort of pseudo
goggles almost they look like goggles, but they're made of woods,
so they're very rigid. They sit on your face. They've
got these lenses in them, and then there are two
different pictures for each lens. It's the same picture, but
slightly different angles for each picture, so like one of
them was slightly to the left and one of them
(04:10):
was slightly to the right. Pages barely just barely off
from each other, but looking at it through these lenses
made it appear as though there was just a single image,
but that it had more depth than should have been
possible by looking at that image. It sort of made
it look like you had an image where it had
depth to it, even though it was just an image,
and it was because you were looking at two images
(04:30):
that were so close that through these lenses it looked
like one. But it created the illusion of depth.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
If that makes sense, Yeah, yeah, for sure. Now, doctor
Bella Jueliz Julie's something like that, something like that discovered
a way to use computers to generate simple two D
images that could create a three D illusion, and these
were called auto stereograms.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yes, up to this point, researchers believed that the perception
of depth lay within our eyeballs, specifically, like our eyeballs
were what did it? But j this is work inspired
a whole new line of research that instead concluded that
three D vision, this ability for us to detect things
in three D space, must be happening in our brains
(05:11):
because like, there weren't actual three D images to see
or even like tricks like lenses that would create them.
This is just a flat picture, just a flat picture,
and all of a sudden you can see what appears
to be a three D image on that picture.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
So he and a student created the first ever image
that could be seen in three D without the use
of special glasses or other equipment. They started with random
dots and patterns of relatively uniform size, and from this
there came three general forms of illusions random dots, random text,
and texture. But these were generally black and white.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yes, Now, the way that these work this I had
to like look into this because I was finding unsatisfactory descriptions.
But essentially what happens is you have just a complex
array of repeating patterns and shapes and usually any more colors, okay,
and around this picture there is a slight, almost imperceptible
(06:07):
shift in the images in these repeating patterns, such that
when the eyes are relaxed, you're sort of looking past
the picture or through the picture. In a way. What
you do is you see the small shifts in the color.
We start to perceive them as depth, We see them
as shadows. Essentially, that allows some designed image in the
(06:29):
art to appear as a three D shape coming out
of or hovering in front of the image of the background,
which is the sort of repeated image. Sure, that is
the general experience of this, and we will talk about
the perception of seeing it instead look like an indentation
here in a moment. But yeah, this is essentially the
way that they work is like there's just these very small,
(06:52):
almost imperceptible changes in the image of these repeated patterns,
where like just those small shifts in the pattern create
what appears to our eyes to be shadow edges, which
creates the illusion of depth, so that if you're looking
at it just the right way, it looks like like
you can actually see the image sort of pop out.
(07:13):
Otherwise it just looks like nothing. You just look at
like a whole bunch of repeated pattern and an image
no idea what it is.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, it looks a little bit nebulous and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
I wish that, like we're talking about imperceivable patterns, Like
I wish ads were imperceivable. All right, So we are
back and we're talking about this magic eye thing. In
nineteen ninety one, a year that Nevermind dropped and destroyed
(07:43):
hair Metal, and then that's the year punk broke if
you will, a guy named Tom Batchier Batchie Bassier Sure
and artist Sherry Smith teamed up to leverage the new
color and sophisticated technology afforded by computers and created the
brand Magic Eye. So just so everybody is aware Magic
Eye is an actual brand. It's not because this this
(08:03):
existed before Magic Eye showed up, Yeah, at least on
some level.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Yeah. Essentially they were these like autostereogram illusions, which is
a very catchy name and I don't understand how it
didn't catch.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
On, Yeah just rolls off the top.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But calling it Magic Eye like that that became pretty
much universal, almost like like calling a tissue of Kleenex
in that in.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
That way, or calling a band aid a band aid
exactly a band aid.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
That's the bandage.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, like some kind of medical bandage, rap band aid,
uh huh yeah, which also like then it worked its
way into metaphorical context like rip the band aid off,
Like there's like sugubiquitous term. They could not be happier
about that. Thanks capitalism anyway, now thinking about this, like
this is sort of the why we enjoyed these. I
think part of the appeal of Magic Eye visual puzzles
(08:49):
is that they cannot be instantly seen, like you have
to work for it. Yeah, so there's kind of a
game like element if you're around other people and trying
to be the first to see the image it gives
you privileged inform that others don't have. And of course,
even if there's not other people around, there's still simply
the fun of solving a challenging puzzle, like you just
were able to work through it and make it happen,
(09:10):
and like that can be its own sort of reward.
And so I can sort of see the game like
nature of this being a challenge because it's not so easy,
I think is very appealing and feels like a form
of play for a lot of people.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yeah, and it's important to understand that this requires two
working eyes. Because our eyes have slightly different angles from
which to view objects, we get enough information to behave
with respect to the field of depth that is created
by having two side by side visual inputs. Three D
images exploit the history of fluency developed with dual vision
to allow most people in the world to respond to
visual stimuli or visual information similar to one one another,
(09:47):
although not identical. So basically, simply put, because our eyes
effectively just have two different views of the world, we
need that. That's like an essential prerequisite to be able
to see the three D images in these autostereo.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
And we have to have some fluency with that, like,
there is some evidence that shows that, like people who
are born without vision or lose their vision early on,
even if they recover it later, they will struggle to
be able to use the stereo vision that we are
otherwise accustomed to, so like our ability to and also
like young young babies also like their vision kind of sucks.
Like we are our brains come equipped for us to
(10:20):
learn to process visual information, but we do learn it,
like we do learn those things, and so this is
like fluency with behaving with respect to visual information is
an aspect of our learning and development early on, and
that this essentially exploits that fluency because we're sort of
used to responding to things in this way. Yeah, okay,
so here's the how too portion of this. If you're
(10:41):
someone who is trying to look at a three D image,
I looked at so many of these in preparation for this.
I like my eyes were actually starting to get a
little bit fatigued because I was like, I hadn't done
this in a long time, and I was like, does
this work on a computer screen? Totally does By the way,
any flat surface is totally fine.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Nice, all right.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
The recommendation generally is to try and relax your eyes
and look past the image. Like the image is right
in front of you, but you want to try and
visualize as if you're looking through it to something behind it.
Try and imagine I'm focusing on a point at some
place behind the image, even just six inches past the image.
Just try me looking past it. I find that the
(11:18):
more the further past it I look, the easier, the
more quickly it comes to me. So like, just try
and look all the way past it. Honestly, like when
I'm doing it, my image is my vision is so
blurry relative to the image because I'm looking so far
past it that like it almost looks like it's double
image for a second. Sure, and this can be tricky.
We naturally want to try and focus on the image,
(11:40):
so it takes practice influency to build the skill to
recognize the feeling of how you focus your eyes to
expose the hidden images. And so yeah, I've sort of,
like as I said, I've done this a couple different ways.
We'll talk about it, but like that's my way. Is
I sort of like I guess you could say I'm
focusing on the point. In a difference, it's more like
I'm allowing my eyes to become completely unfocused as more
(12:02):
like it, like I just allow them to get super blurry.
And if you can sort of just imagine you're just
not focusing on anything, but you're also not really moving
your eyes around. It's kind of hard to do, but
if you do it like that is the strategy that
I use. And a lot of people do this sort
of look past that thing, and I do that as well,
but like mine's mostly like I just unFocus my eyes.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Yeah, that's so funny because I was always taught to
cross your eyes.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
That you're supposed to cross your eyes and then pull
out and then you can see it.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
That's actually why you see the inverted image.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Ah oh okay, so yeah, so we're right, we're right
about to get there.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
I'll let you take this next point here.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Okay, all right, all right.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
So, as Abraham said, this could take a while to learn,
and so people never really figure it out. So another
method is to cross your eyes like I did, and
this creates a focal point in front of the picture
that can thus find depth in the lines in the image. However,
this will create an inverted image like I have seen
my entire life, and I thought something was wrong with me. No,
my entire life, I was so concerned. Rather than it
(12:57):
looking like it's popping out of the picture, it looks
like it's cut out of the image, like a silhouette,
or like sinking into the image, And is what I
have experienced. That has been my experience with Magic Guy
posters and Magic Guy images. My entire life. I thought,
I thought that my brain was broken. So thank you
for giving me the letting me know what happened here.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
It has entirely to do with where the focal point is,
because it then changes the perception of the lines as
them being shadows and like creating depth. So if the
focal point is in front of the picture, then the
lines look like they're moving away from you, and versus
if you focal point is behind the picture, it looks
like they're coming towards you. It's kind of a backwards
way of thinking about it, but that's how it works.
And because like I've had the same experience where I
(13:35):
also figured out that a very quick way to see
it is to cross your eyes, but it creates an
inverted image. Yeah, and so I prefer generally to go
with the like unfocused vision way of seeing it because
the feeling about popping out feels like it has more texture,
and I feel like I usually get a clearer look
at the picture too. But you can do the cross
eyed version of it. It will work, that's wild. Another
(13:56):
strategy is if the image is behind glass or if
it's printed on glossy paper, you can try and find
a position so that there is a glare on the
image and focus on the glare. That can again help
you relax your focus to see the hidden image that
grabs your attention. But again, because your focal point will
be in front of the image, you'll likely get the
inverted image by doing that trick.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Another trick listed is to look at two side by
side images until they start to merge into your vision,
and then you can look around the image to see
the three D art within those and.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Then the final recommendation and this is how I used
to do it before I could start doing it by
just unfocusing my eyes, is to hold the image close
to your face, like so close that it's basically touching
your nose, and at that distance it's too close for
you to focus on the image, so you're kind of
forced to look past it. And then you slowly pull
back while trying to maintain that lack of focus and
eventually like it'll sort of snap into view or like
(14:44):
fuzz into view and your image and that can help
you start to teach you how to create the relaxed
focus that allows the depth lines to pop out.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Yeah, most definitely.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
So if you're not seeing the image, it can be
frustrating and probably feel like people making it up, at
least to some of the time. So we're really sorry
for those of you who have to deal with this.
It's not fun to be on the receiving end of that.
But if you're able to figure this out, it is fun.
You're not missing the greatest thing on earth. It can
be moderately entertaining, and it could be a way that
you can kind of like commiserate with folks. So like
(15:13):
that's kind of a fun experience to have around these.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I just want to say, like, you know, it's
a bummer, but like you're also not missing like that
big of a thing, and sorry, you don't get to
say it. It's cool, I guess. But it's like a gimmick,
a novelty gimmick, so right, exactly, all right, as far
as this being like how this relates to the quality
of your vision in your eyes. Generally, research scenes to
suggest that these are pretty benign. If you spend a
(15:36):
lot of time doing it, you might start to experience
eye strain or stu or like struggle focusing your vision
clearly again. And if that happens, take a break, stop
doing what you're doing. You might want to consult your
eye doctor if you're really having trouble. If you are
really having trouble, you'll probably also have to have your
friend who wasn't also starting in a magic guy help
drive you to your appointment if you're because you don't
want to be driving away focus. Sure, yes, if you
(15:59):
are experiencing that love of distress from this, to go
see an eye doctor. But generally speaking, the research has
shown that like, you're not going to see permanent damage
from this. It's not really going to hurt you in
any way right now.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Some suggest that it may even be helpful by allowing
you to practice coordinating your eyes and working together, and
by practicing relaxations. So like, these are just I think,
you know, when I try to look at a magic eye,
like I feel like I have some sense of being
able to relax my eyes and like relax my focus
and kind of do that, and it's one of those
things where you start to kind of get like a
perception of what that feels. Like it's worth just practicing
(16:31):
that just for the sake of like understanding your body better.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, yeah, very much. So. It's it's like I learned
to flare my nostrils and it was just by like
I practiced doing things with my face until I was
planning my nostrils and then I learned what that muscle
felt like, and now I can control it. Yeah, but
like that took practice, like I had to figure it out.
So the sort of final point here is just don't
overdo it, Like you know, as far as health goes,
like respond to your body's cues. It seems like there
is an aspect of this that might be somewhat beneficial.
(16:56):
Plus they're fun, but they aren't for everyone. And if
you don't do it, it's not like you we're missing
out on some critical feature of development that would have
your eyes be a lot better than they are. Both
of us were classes and we've done magic guys, so
certainly didn't prevent us from good reaching this point right,
but we count ran along on this mini So that's
magic eye images, illusions, puzzles and how they work. If
(17:16):
you would like to tell us about those things you
can't reach us, you can email us directly info at
wwdwwdpodcast dot com or on the social media platforms we
do look y look forward to hearing from you. Join
us on our full length episodes. There we will also
add recommendations and we thank all of our patron supporters.
Speaking of which, if you liked to join that list
and have your name read aloud on our full length episodes,
you can head over to Patreon dot com slash wwdwwdpodcast.
(17:40):
There you'll get ad free content, bonus content, early episodes,
all kinds of goodies over there, and it really helps
us continue being a podcast. Otherwise, you can like subscribe,
leave a rating and review, particularly if it's gonna be
that five stars and nice kind words, that really helps
a lot more than lower stars and not kind words.
And of course you can tell a friend and like
just make them subscribe to our podcast so that they
at least sometimes feel compelled to pick it up. Thank
(18:02):
you so much to my team of people to help
make this episode this podcast it all happen. Is there
anything that I misred that you'd like to add before
we wrap up this mini?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Uh No, I think that covers it perfect.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Thank you for recording with me today, Shane. Thank you
to everyone who is listening. I think that is the
way I have to say about this. This is Abraham
and this is a Shane. Why We Do what we
Do mini is out.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
You can learn more about this and other episodes by
going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and
we hope you have an awesome day.
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