Eye illusions have been around for years. Once restricted to books and posters, now these colourful tricks and patterns are being displayed via Apple apps on your iPhone and iPad.

Great for something to get your mind going on a cold winter morning, there are hundreds of images and patterns displayed in clever colours and ways to make the user think hard about what they can see and how they see it.

300 Optical Illusions from Michael Latour, in a rather self explanatory fashion, hosts 300 different images and patterns to delight and trick your brain. As your eyes focus on the black element of a monochrome pattern, the contrasting white pattern jumps out and make the whole image appear as if it is moving or swaying. This clever balance of colour tricks the mind.

Another pattern provided on the app is a grey background with a black point in the centre of two circles of slanted squares. As you focus on the black dot and move your head forwards and back, the outside rings appear to move clockwise and anti clockwise in a spinning motion.

It is clever how the human brain can be tricked, and how the first impression of an image is often only one area of the overall picture on closer inspection.

3D Illusions from BHI Technologies is a great app for being able to identify different images from one illusion. As you turn the handset to a landscape position, the first image appears. Brightly coloured and busy, the image has a button underneath with a question mark on it. With a click tap, a box appears asking if you can see certain things in the image. This is really helpful as so often eye illusions leave you feeling confused as to what exactly you are supposed to be looking for. If you can’t see what is listed, the dialogue box disappears and you can then start your search for the hidden image/s again.

Both apps are great for keeping your brain and eyes busy and it’s a great way of testing your guesses and looking deeper into what you should in fact be looking for when faced with optical illusions.

The apps are both free and are a quick and easy way to test yourself. If you thought you’d mastered the book versions years ago, think again as these apps provide even more tricks for you eyes and mind.

Amy is a writer for online designer sunglasses specialist DirectSight.

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