Wait, so is this optical illusion straight or curved?

Who doesn't love a good optical illusion? Whether you're into rotating horses or topsy-turvy celebrities (both of which we've seen recently), there's something for everyone in the wacky and wonderful world of mind-benders.

Today's perplexing find is all about geometric shapes and colours. At first glance, it looks as though this example features many rows of curved and angular lines, but the closer you look, you soon realise that each line's curviness is dependent on what colour background it's on. And if you solve this brain-boggler and fancy delving deep into some more illusions, then make sure you check out our round-up of our favourite optical illusions. 

The baffling design was created by artist Kohske Takahashi, who has aptly named this brain-frazzler the Curvature Blindness illusion. The illusion was created to get a better understanding of the brain and the eye perceives curves in different scenarios. 

Takahashi explains, "The low curvatures are perceptually replaced by the obtuse corners, it postulates that the underlying mechanisms of the curve and corner perception could not be independent, but rather would interfere or compete with each other". 

This baffling design reminds me of the optical illusion we saw recently where there were 16 hidden circles among many monochrome rectangles (see above). It's also similar to the accidental illusion where all the lines ended up looking as if they had melded together. 

I've spent too much time staring at this illusion now, trying to work out if the lines are curved or straight. If you need to refresh the palette then why not check out our roundup of the best Trompe L'oeil illusions. Or if you'd like to have a go at making your own, then make sure you have a look at our guide on how to create a 3D optical illusion. 

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