Big Ben leaning over!

Big Ben

Does Big Ben look like it’s leaning over more in the right hand image than in the left hand one?  It can take a double-take to spot that the two pictures are identical. I find it a fantastically strong illusion.

It’s a demo of a new illusion found by Frederick Kingdom and colleagues (you’ll need to scroll down that link to get to their bit – look out for an even more than usual Leaning Tower of Pisa). Their discovery is a new version of the size-constancy illusion. This is my second demonstration of it – a few posts back I used a picture of a historic streetlamp. But here’s an example that looks stronger to me, with a better known subject.

Update 10 Oct 2011.  Big Ben really is leaning over! But not (yet) as much as it appears to lean in this illusion.

3 thoughts on “Big Ben leaning over!”

  1. No, they’re not taken from different angles! If you know how to view picture pairs as stereo pairs without a viewer, try making this pair of pictures overlap, and you’ll see they’re Identical. (For how to do that, I think any of our stereo picture posts will give you links). Or download them and try overlapping them in your picture editor. I agree it’s such a strong illusion, it’s hard to believe.

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