Two British psychologists have recently discovered how a person can improve their vision temporarily by staring at an optical illusion.
These psychologists wanted to test whether visual illusions had any effect on the sharpness of a person’s vision. They tested their participant’s vision using the logMar chart of letters to see how small they could read up to.
After the initial eyesight test, the participants were split into two groups. One group watched the spiral optical illusion rotate clockwise and one counterclockwise. Watching clockwise spirals increases the ability to adapt to a contracting motion therefore subsequent static images appear as if they are expanding. Watching counterclockwise spirals does the opposite. This research wanted to test whether this meant that after watching the illusion a participant’s ability to read letters from a logMAR chart would improve or decline.
Immediately after being shown either the clockwise or counterclockwise spiral illusion, participants had their eyesight re-tested. Those who watched the counterclockwise illusion could not read as far down the letter rows as they had been able to before the test thus showing a decline in visual acuity (sharpness of vision). Those who watched the clockwise illusion saw improved vision and could read smaller rows of letters than before the test. The effect of watching the test wore of quite soon and eyesight returned to normal so unfortunately, watching the clockwise optical illusions is not a long term fix to improved vision.
If you are looking for a longer term fix, we can’t promise you fun optical illusions but we can promise you professional, affordable lasik, prk and cataract surgery options. Laser eye surgery is the most effective way of improving your vision long term so call us to book a free consultation to discuss how laser eye surgery can work for you.