Have you ever wondered how people can believe something that seems so far-fetched? Whenever we aimlessly scroll through our Instagram feed, go down a Reddit rabbit hole, or binge YouTube videos, our minds are at work processing and interpreting the information we encounter. The posts with statements which engender anger, disgust or anxiety tend to stick. Such is the result of “internet cognitive isoforms" (see infographic) which are simple to understand, yet reveal a disturbing fact: It’s easy to deceive minds into believing things that are false or at least difficult to disprove.

To understand internet cognitive isoforms, it’s helpful to step back and think about how our brains process visual illusions. As kids we connected dots to make a fun little picture. After a few minutes of dot-to-dot connections, a picture of a dog, cat, or pony appeared. Our brain also does that with all the information we see—forming many of our impressions about life, the world, religion, politics, you name it. Gestalt psychologists first discovered that the brain takes pieces of information to create something whole, regular, orderly, and simple. The dots first might look like a tail. Is it a dog's tail? We soon find out. Our brain gets rid of all the dots and we only see an image in the end. Several laws were created from grouping images: closure, similarity, common fate, proximity, symmetry, continuation, etc. Optical illusions often use these laws: Is it two faces or one vase? A number 6 upside down or a 9? Some illusions take time to unlearn because of what we call an anchoring bias.

Let’s apply that concept to the information we consume online. Much like the dots, online spaces........

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