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What: Even though I still believe that “dot’s that won’t quit” is a more fitting name, this optical illusion is actually known as the scintillating grid illusion. It was discovered by Elke Lingelbach in 1994 and also belongs to the category of Hermann Grid Illusion (I haven't created this one yet, but I will in the future!). The effect is straightforward yet powerful. You'll notice dark dots seemingly appearing in the intersection circles when they're not actually there!

How To: You're able to customize the colors and obtain different intensities of this effect. For instance, when the colors are reversed, you'll see light dots. You can adjust the colors and sizes to determine precisely which contrasting combinations make it work. For me, even a very small size is still highly effective, and there's absolutely no way to count those dots.

Explain it: Currently, there seems to be some debate about what exactly causes this effect. The previous understanding was that your receptive fields were miscalculating the light and dark colors. However, the clever people at MIT are proposing something different. I'm not an expert and have a hard time grasping any of the explanations, but feel free to delve deeper into the topic . All things considered, I think we're still unsure about the exact reason (it's difficult to use your brain to study your brain!).