If you’re itching to tease your brain and eyes today, a trippy optical illusion from 2018 has resurfaced.
And it really is a trip.
The optical illusion is called “a demo of lightness perception,” courtesy of Japanese experimental psychologist Akiyoshi Kitaoka, a professor at Ritsumeikan University.
The illusion is simple: it shows someone slowly moving a grey-coloured square across a piece of paper.
(Take note: people in the comments thought it was a tablet. For those who don’t know, paper is an ancient type of material that civilizations used to use to write and draw on…)
In the video — which has now received over 1.8 million views — as the grey square moves from one side to the other, it appears as if it’s changing colour.
But wait — IT’S NOT.
The phenomenon makes it look like the colour of the square is changing. It’s called “simultaneous contrast illusion.” In reality, the square doesn’t change its colour but its luminosity appears different when set to backgrounds of various hues.
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Our good ol’ brains register the square as a lighter colour against a darker background and vice-versa against a light one.
Are you all caught up? Check out Kitaoka’s video below and let your mind go wild.
A demo of lightness perception pic.twitter.com/BSVpgcuIw1
— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@AkiyoshiKitaoka) August 12, 2018
And if you’re still having trouble grasping what your brain just saw, Kitaoka offers plenty of additional context to not make you feel like your noggin is about to explode:
an explanation pic.twitter.com/MHM7WtFjCH
— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@AkiyoshiKitaoka) August 12, 2018
a digital movie pic.twitter.com/6hzTw6sTWP
— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@AkiyoshiKitaoka) August 16, 2018
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