Keep your eyes on the green dot. After a few seconds, one, two or all three yellow dots vanish, then come back.
Try this
- Stare at the green dot for at least 10 seconds.
- Try Rotation speed at 0: the dots stay put. The motion is what makes them vanish.
- Change Yellow dot size.
Why it happens
Yoram Bonneh, Alexander Cooperman and Dov Sagi described this in Nature in 2001. Bright, clear dots can vanish completely from awareness when a moving pattern surrounds them, even though the dots never change. The brain seems to treat stationary targets as less important when a moving pattern dominates, and filters them out of awareness for a moment. It is used in research on consciousness because what you see changes while the image does not.
Did you know?
The dots often vanish one or two at a time, and sometimes all three together.
References
- Bonneh Y., Cooperman A., Sagi D. (2001). Motion-induced blindness in normal observers. Nature, 411, 798-801. doi:10.1038/35081073
- Background on Wikipedia
The illusion on this page is drawn by code written for this site. Last checked 1 November 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Why do the yellow dots disappear?
The moving pattern makes the brain drop the steady dots from awareness for a moment.
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