There’s always a feeling of surprise, curiosity, even joy — an aha moment — when you realize you’ve been “tricked” by your senses whether it’s looking at a picture from a different perspective and seeing a different image or using hands and lights to change or “refract” light.

At Illusion Confusion, you will experience how perception of objects can create illusions that don’t stand up to the test of science.

This exhibit is a very social exhibit, drawing people together. Explore the science and perception of light in the "Social Light" piece, laugh at yourself or your friends in the anti-gravity mirror, or guess at the different images found in the illusions package.

Many of the pieces require hands-on manipulation of the display. "Through the Looking Glass" teaches you how mirrors and mazes can confuse and conflict images, and will also result in you or your kids sharing your “funny drawings” with teachers, parents and friends. At the large wall-size "Social Light" display, use your bodies’ shadows to manipulate light as lenses, mirrors or prisms. You will also to be able to view some very interesting visual illusions. Try your hand at a "Horse and Cowboy" puzzle, which requires a new way of thinking to find a solution. "Old Woman or Young Girl?" and "Faces or Vases" shows how the brain changes the interpretation of the same information. "Paris in the Spring" and "Count the Fs" demonstrates how familiarity causes us to overlook details. With "Parabolas," an object is placed on the lower mirror, but what you see is a convincing image of the object floating in air at the opening in the top. Reaching for this image reveals its ghost-like nature as yur hand passes right through it. "Water Standing on Air" looks like magic on a perforated screen. Try to suspend as much water as you can on the metal screen. By turning the tube quickly and smoothly to an exact vertical position, two forces conspire to suspend water above a metal screen. Attractions between water molecules (surface tension) in the upper chamber, and a higher air pressure in the lower chamber help achieve this “Illusion Confusion.” "Disappearing Act" is a computer-based exhibit that shows various animal shapes and words moving back and forth against a multi-colored background. The shapes are the same pattern as the background so when the visitor makes a shape stop moving, it becomes impossible to see. The "Anti-Gravity Mirror" demonstrates how difficult it is to tell a mirror image from a real object. With the mirror’s unique configuration, all sorts of impossible tricks appear to be easy: a visitor seems to be able to lift both feet off the ground or make his or her head disappear.

Meanwhile, you will also be actually LEARNING something! Such as how light refracts and reflects, or about the ins and outs of scientific inquiry, or about optical illusions. So don't miss Illusion Confusion.

Check the schedule and see when Illusion Confusionn will be near you!

Developed by the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in partnership with the Arkansas Discovery Network, this exhibition ties in with Arkansas Science Curriculum Frameworks at multiple grade levels.