Plants can experience 'optical illusions' that cause them to grow in the wrong direction.
April 1, 2026
Original Paper
Nonlinear distributed sensing of light patterns leads to perceptual distortions in plants
bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.03.31.715481
The Takeaway
Researchers found that plants don't just grow toward the brightest light; they integrate light signals like a mathematical vector. This can trick the plant's decentralized 'brain' into perceiving light patterns that aren't physically there, causing them to miss the actual light source.
From the abstract
Many organisms lack centralized sensory-processing systems, navigating complex environments through local integration of spatially distributed stimuli (e.g., chemotaxis of cells, bacteria, or growing neurons). Here we propose the first general physical and geometric framework to describe how such distributed sensing translates into integrated directional responses. We study plants, multicellular decentralized systems that grow towards light (phototropism), which can come from multiple directions