An incredible optical illusion has gone viral on Twitter this week - and it’s seriously mind-boggling.
The illusion features a photo of several people, and appears to be in colour. However, all is not as it seems, and the photo is actually black and white.
Lionel Page, an economist at UTC Economics, tweeted the photo, writing: “This is a black and white photograph. Only the lines have colour.
“What you ‘see’ is what your predicts the reality to be, given the imperfect information it gets.”
The illusion relies on coloured grid lines, which are cleverly placed over areas of the photo. These lines trick your brain into thinking that whole area is in colour.
For example, blue grid lines placed over one girl’s T-shirt trick your brain into thinking her whole T-shirt is blue, while the same is true for green grid lines over another girl’s top.
Several people have replied to Mr Page’s tweet to express their amazement at the illusion.
One user wrote: “I get a zombie movie effect. All of the clothing is coloured in (though, the red shirts look pink with red lines on top), but the faces are completely grey.”
Another added: “The first time I saw this I was gobsmacked. I saw everything in colour. I come back a day later and I see a black and white photo covered in coloured lines. I guess my brain must have processed the information overnight.”
Meanwhile, one user got rather philosophical, writing: “Theres an analogy here for politics that most people will never get.
“They all just think what they see is absolute truth and fact, but they don’t realise their brain is filling in the gaps according to their beliefs.”
