A THOUGHT-PROVOKING optical illusion that plays tricks on your mind has gone viral on social media.
Optical illusions often use color to confuse the human brain – and one TikTok user with the handle @hecticNick recently proved this.
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Nick displays two images that illustrate how an optical illusion can make your brain believe that a black-and-white image is in color.
First, the content creator shared an image of a building complex in neon blue, orange, and purple hues.
In the center of the image is a black dot, which the TikToker urges users to focus on.
“Keep your eyes on this black dot, do so for about ten seconds,” Nick said in the 17-second clip.
Shortly after, the image transforms from an over-saturated visual to black-and-white.
However, if viewers had been looking at the black dot as instructed, the picture actually appears for a moment to be in color.
“Watch what happens as it now changes. This image is black and white but I bet you saw some color when it changed,” Nick said.
Many of his 3.9 million followers were left mind-blown, with several thousand taking to the comments section to express their thoughts.
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“I saw color but when I look away it was black and white,” one TikTok user wrote, adding a series of ‘shocked’ emojis.
“Wow, it worked! But how,” a second baffled user chimed in.
“Woah dude, nice illusion,” a third TikToker remarked.
Since going live a little over a month ago, the optical illusion video has garnered more than 100,000 likes.
How does it work?
The reason this optical illusion works may be due to our brain filling in black-and-white images based on our memory of what the color should be, according to one study.
“Our brains do a pretty good job of keeping colors constant for us,” Pete Etchells wrote for The Guardian.
“When we look at a banana, for instance, it will look yellow regardless of the conditions we’re viewing it in,” he added.
This is known as ‘cortical coloring-in’ and happens via the visual cortex, which is found in the occipital lobe of our brain.
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