Stories by Stephen L. Macknik

Magicians and cognitive scientists know how to manipulate what we pick—or thought we picked

Once you know the "Snow Blind illusion," you won’t be able to wait for winter

Scientists have found the speed limit of vision with an illusion in which nothing moves at all

Illusions noticed by Galileo can help explain how we see light and dark 

An artist’s legs appear encased in plastic, but it’s an illusion that’s painted on with a few white strokes

Galileo saw celestial spheres spinning in space, but was dismayed by effects we now know arose in his brain: The same Jovian moon could appear small or big depending on whether it was dark or bright against its background. DaVinci and Helmholtz also suffered from similar delusions of grandeur, when viewing white objects versus black. We show some of brain’s illusions of brightness here, as companions to our new Illusions article in this month’s print edition of Scientific American MIND.

Engaging the public has long been taboo in scientific circles, but social media outlets are starting to force a change 

Childhood tricks can reveal a surprising amount about early cognition and the nervous system

Military aviators learn to second-guess their senses

Staring at images can temporarily reset retinal cells and cause ghostly visions

Eye gaze is critically important to social primates such as humans. Maybe that is why illusions involving eyes are so compelling

What the leaning tower and related illusions reveal about how your brain constructs 3-D images

Marketing illusions that make time fly

You are more than a robot searching for food and mates

Pain is an emotion

When seeing is believing

How do we fool thee? Let us count the ways that illusions play with our hearts and minds

Face or food? The brain recognizes edible artwork on multiple levels

Trompe l'oeil illusions challenge your perception

The facts and fictions of crimson perception

The human brain is good at identifying faces, but illusions can fool our “face sense”

Art and neuroscience combine to create fascinating examples of illusory motion

Colors can change with their surroundings and spread beyond the lines

Does size matter? To your brain, it doesn't