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The best optical illusions of 2016 will give your brain a workout

Tease your brain with the best optical illusions of the year as selected by visual scientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists and artists.
/ Source: TODAY

If the blue-or-gold dress or the giant red dot weren't enough to give your brain a workout, this group of the best optical illusions of 2016 should do the trick.

Selected by the Neural Correlate Society every year, the illusions "are perceptual experiences that do not match the physical reality,'' according to the contest.

Among the top five finishers is an illusion that allows you to see colors that are not actually onscreen in the form of colorless bubbles that appear to be colored, all set to music from a dark lounge.

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The top 10 finalists and winning optical illusions were picked by a group of visual scientists, ophthalmologists, neurologists and artists who use them to study sensory perception that can help with understanding neurological diseases.

Another top illusion involves a zoetrope, an optical toy popular in the 19th century in which images are projected on a cylinder. This one involves birds in order to get your head spinning.

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One of the top finishers uses vertical cylinders and their mirror images to fry your brain.

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The overall winner is called "New Tricks for An Old Dog" by Mathew T. Harrison and Gideon P. Caplovitz of the University of Nevada-Reno. It uses what is known as a Gabor element that moves and changes so quickly you'll think you accidentally ate a brownie from Snoop Dogg.

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