Fading Dots

What is happening

Rest your gaze on the center cross for about ten seconds, without directly tracking the faint dots. What you notice varies by person, screen, and viewing distance — you don’t need all eight dots to vanish at once. This isn’t an endurance test where you wait for them to disappear, so if your eyes get tired, feel free to just look away normally.

Why it looks that way

Fixing your gaze can make a low-contrast, unchanging stimulus at the edge of your vision fade from notice. Faint, blurry-edged shapes are especially prone to this. Move your eyes and the incoming stimulation changes, making the dots easy to see again — a difference worth observing for yourself.

How to check

Revealing the answer traces each dot’s position with a thin outline. Once you confirm the original dots are still right there, close the answer and compare against what you saw while holding your gaze still. There’s no need to avoid blinking, and this is not a test of visual acuity or eye health.

Try a related illusion

For reference: explanation and research. The figure here is an original implementation.

First described

After Ignaz Paul Vital Troxler, 1804

See it in the timeline