According to the folks themselves:

Who says science isn’t fun? Visual illusions, such as the dozens you will find in this special issue, make great eye candy. But they also serve a serious purpose for researchers. How? Illusions push the mysterious and wondrous brain into revealing its secrets.

From the confusing and fragmentary inputs gathered by our senses, our brains create our seemingly fluid conscious perceptions and a sensible narrative of the world around us. Brains do not, however, talk to us about how they perform those impressive tasks. Scientists can learn a lot by using imaging equipment and by making other observations. But sometimes they also have to “trick” brains, the better to probe perception. That’s where illusions come in.

The Neuroscience of Illusion
How tricking the eye reveals the inner workings of the brain.

A Perspective on 3-D Visual Illusions
What the leaning tower and related illusions reveal about how your brain constructs 3-d images

The Neuroscience of Yorick’s Ghost and Other Afterimages
Staring at images can temporarily reset retinal cells and cause ghostly visions

Colors Out of Space
Colors can change with their surroundings and spread beyond the lines

Kinetic Illusions in Op Art
Art and neuroscience combine to create fascinating examples of illusory motion

Sculpting the Impossible: Solid Renditions of Visual Illusions
Artists find mind-bending ways to bring impossible figures into 3-D reality

Food for Thought: Visual Illusions Good Enough to Eat
Face or food? The brain recognizes edible artwork on multiple levels

What’s in a Face?
The human brain is good at identifying faces, but illusions can fool our “face sense”

The Eyes Have It
Eye gaze is critically important to social primates such as humans. Maybe that is why illusions involving eyes are so compelling

The Illusions of Love
How do we fool thee? Let us count the ways that illusions play with our hearts and minds

Sounds pretty sweet.

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