Animated Color Optical Illusion

It’s been a little while since this site has tried to trick your brain with a little color optical illusion. So, today I thought I’d throw out a color optical illusion to get you thinking.  We read all your comments, and as of late, it seems our illusion game isn’t entertaining you.

First, I want you to take a look at this image, specifically the gray bar…

Is this gray bar the same color

Is the gray bar one solid color? Or is it lighter on one end and darker on the other end?

If you said it looks like the right side of the gray bar is darker than the left side, you’d be right! Sort of…

While the gray bar in the image above looks like a gradient of different shades of gray, going fro a light gray to a dark gray, it’s not. It only looks like it is. The reality is, though, that the gray bar is actually one solid color, and your eyes just tricked you with another color optical illusion.

Our brain actually takes in not just the gray bar, but also the area surrounding it. Since the background in this color optical illusion is a gradient going from black to white, the left side of the bar looks like it’s lighter than the left, because it’s surrounded by a darker hue. The right side of the bar however, looks darker than it really is because it’s surrounded by a much lighter color. The two sides of the gray bar contrast with the different sides of the gradient and, therefore, appear to be different colors.

Still not entirely convinced about the gray bar in this color optical illusion? Check out this animated GIF, which removes the gradient background…

Color optical illusion gray bar animated

Once the background is removed from this color optical illusion, you can see that the gray bar is, in fact, one solid color.  A pretty nifty trick, no?  Did this illusion fool you?

Up for a couple more color optical illusions like this? Check out this colored squares illusion and this contrast changing optical illusion!

 

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