So-called optical toys such as thaumatropes, phenakistiscopes, kaleidoscopes, and stereoscopes were extremely popular in the nineteenth century. They served not only to entertain audiences, captivating the public as instruments of – voluntary or involuntary – deception, but also to study visual perception.

The lecture by Petra Löffler, media and cultural studies scholar at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, shows how playing tricks with humans’ visual perception can be used for science and research.