Friday Illusion: Deceptive motion in Super Mario land

Caitlin Stier, video intern

In this video game clip, it looks like Mario is jumping vertically while an enemy tortoise slides by underneath him. But keep watching when the background stops moving and you'll see that their movement is not quite what it seems.

The animation, developed by cognitive psychologist Sebastiaan Math?t from VU University in Amsterdam, is a variation of a common illusion where our perception of an object's motion is affected by a moving background. In a previous Friday Illusion post, we shared a video that exploits the same brain trick. Can you identify it?

Let us know your choice by posting the headline in the Comments section below and the first correct answer will receive a New Scientist goodie bag. Good luck!

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1cba31b8/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cnstv0C20A120C0A20Cfriday0Eillusion0Edeceptive0Emotion0Ein0Esuper0Emario0Eland0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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