The Shepard elephant, also known as L'egs-istential Quandary or the impossible elephant is an optical illusion, of the type impossible object, based on figure-ground confusion. As its creator Roger Shepard explains: [1]

The Shepard elephant illusion is an optical illusion that was created by the artist David H. Shepard. The illusion is a black-and-white line drawing of an elephant that appears to be three-dimensional and in motion, despite being a flat, static image.

The elephant illusion is an adaptation of the original which was created by Roger Shepard and published in his book Mind Sights (1990, WH Freeman&Co). Shepard calls this type of illustration a Figure-Ground Impossibility because it

2022年4月7日 · Optical illusions trump the above line by Marcus Aurelius as each of them is designed to trick our brains and cease to exist in reality. Popularly known as Shephard Elephant or L'egs-istential...

2012年3月9日 · While most people know it simply as the “impossible elephant”, the actual title of the work is “L’egs-istential Quandary”. How many legs can you count on this elephant optical illusion ?

2022年4月5日 · The popular, Shepard Elephant, or L’egs-istential Quandary – an image of an elephant that has baffled brains due to the number of legs it has.

Impossible Elephant Illusion was created by a scientist named Roger N Shepard, and first published in 1990 on page 79 of his book Mind Sights. He gave it the name "L'egs-istential quandary." It is based on a dream he had in 1974. When he woke up from the dream, he made a pencil sketch of the...

The Shepard elephant, also known as L'egs-istential Quandary or the impossible elephant is an optical illusion, of the type impossible object, based on figure...

While you may think you see 4 or 5 legs, those feet don’t actually attach to any leg on the elephant. The only leg on this elephant is the one in the very back. The original artist of this optical illusion put most of the feet between the actual legs.

When most people first lay eyes on the elephant, they count 4 legs—that’s how we first saw it, too. But, of course, the image can’t be that simple to solve! Let your eyes do that magical “defocusing” thing, and you may see either more or less legs behind the blurriness.