A mind-boggling optical illusion tricks your brain into thinking these faces are different colors, but in reality they are identical

From the cigar nestled in the brickwork to ‘The Dress’, many optical illusions have baffled viewers over the years.

But the latest illusion may be one of the most mind-boggling yet.

The illusion has gone viral on social media and features two cartoon faces.

What color do you think the faces are?

Your first reaction is probably that the face on the left is white, while the face on the right is black.

However, when you place them together, you’ll notice that the two faces are actually identical shades of gray.

The illusion has left many people scratching their heads, with one tweeting: ‘This hurts my head, why is it real.’

Another added: “I’ve seen tricks like this before but this is by far the most convincing version I’ve ever seen.”

On the surface, the illusion is very basic and simply consists of two winking cartoon faces.

The face on the left has a dark green background, while the face on the right has a light green background.

Several other features are different colors in the two images, including the hair and eye.

However, the faces themselves are actually identical shades of gray.

The origins of the cartoon illusion remain unclear, although it is widely shared on TikTok, X and Facebook.

In TikToker SmartFactFeed’s video, they blend the two faces together to confirm that the color is the same.

“At first glance, the two faces appear to have different tones, but this is only due to the surrounding hair color and background shadow,” the caption explained.

‘If you put them together you will see that they are in fact exactly the same color and shade.

In TikToker SmartFactFeed’s video, they merged the two faces together to confirm that the color is the same

‘Yet the illusion persists, because your perception is still influenced by the background and adjacent colors.’

This is known as an ‘optical illusion of color saturation’ and comes down to the way our eyes see and perceive color and brightness.

“The way we see color and clarity is thanks to the cells we have in our retina at the back of our eye,” Lensstore explains.

‘The cones judge the color, and the rods judge the brightness of the image we see.

‘These two cells send information to our brain via the optic nerve and the brain tries to interpret what we see from that signal.

‘When judging color, the brain perceives it differently when it is compared to that object’s surroundings.’

The illusion is widely shared, with many viewers expressing disbelief.

‘It’s actually crazy how this illusion works. I can’t even describe it,” wrote one user on X (formerly Twitter).

Another added: ‘I don’t realize how powerful color context is until images like this appear.’

And someone joked: ‘It’s the dress all over again.’

WHAT IS THE DELBOEUF ILLUSION?

The Delboeuf illusion is a type of visual illusion in which a dot surrounded by a large ring is typically perceived as smaller than a dot of the same size surrounded by a small ring.

This optical trick works because your brain perceives the dot in the context of the outer ring.

It is named after the Belgian philosopher and mathematician Joseph Remi Leopold Delboeuf (1831 – 1896), who created it in 1865.

The Delboeuf illusion is a type of visual illusion in which a point surrounded by a large ring is generally perceived as smaller than a point of the same size surrounded by a small ring.

When it comes to plate size, the theory is that having a smaller plate makes people think they have more food.

However, new research shows that when people are hungry, they can accurately identify the food portion, regardless of how it is served.

According to the researchers, this indicates that hunger stimulates stronger analytical processing, which is not so easily misled by the illusion.

However, it is widely believed that the Delboeuf illusion works in other contexts.