café wall illusion
café wall illusion noun: an optical illusion in which the parallel straight dividing lines between staggered rows with alternating dark and light bricks appear to be sloped rather than parallel.
Noun
café wall illusion (plural café wall illusions)
- An optical illusion in which the parallel straight dividing lines between staggered rows with alternating dark and light bricks appear to be sloped rather than parallel.
Forms of café wall illusion
| plural | café wall illusions |
|---|---|
| alternative form | café-wall illusion |
Origin of café wall illusion
Described under its current name in 1973 by Richard Gregory, according to whom this effect was observed by a member of his laboratory, Steve Simpson, in the tiles of the wall of a café at the bottom of St Michael’s Hill, Bristol.
Questions about café wall illusion
- What does café wall illusion mean?
- Café wall illusion means an optical illusion in which the parallel straight dividing lines between staggered rows with alternating dark and light bricks appear to be sloped rather than parallel.
- What part of speech is café wall illusion?
- Café wall illusion is a noun.
- What is the plural of café wall illusion?
- The plural of café wall illusion is café wall illusions.
Words near café wall illusion in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: café wall illusion (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “café wall illusion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/caf%C3%A9_wall_illusion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.