Going 3D

As you've probably noticed, we live in a three-dimensional world. Although we can figure out the shape and size of the things around us by touch, it helps to be able to see our surroundings too. But what you may not know is that our eyes only produce two-dimensional images, like a flat photograph. The brain then has to analyse these pictures and figure out how to interpret them in 3D, but exactly how this happens is a mystery. To find out, researchers are turning to a bit of visual trickery. They're studying the brains of macaque monkeys shown these optical illusions, where some look flat while others appear more three-dimensional. It turns out that a part of the brain called the parietal cortex, towards the back of the head, is responsible for bringing together all the information that we see about an object, rendering it for us in 3D.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

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Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image by Ari Rosenberg and Dora Angelaki
• Baylor College of Medicine, USA
• Image copyright held by original authors; image reproduction permitted by PNAS
• Research published in PNAS, November 2014