Science Alert claims this illusions mimics time travel in the brain:
In the Illusory Rabbit, the middle flash never happens, but most people still think they saw three flashes to match three beeps.
In the Invisible Rabbit, it’s the middle beep that is missed – and the brain usually thinks there was no middle flash either.
The fact that the middle beep or flash IS getting manipulated shows postdiction at work – it’s actually the last flash and beep that causes the illusion to happen. They make our brain alter what it perceived in the past.