How many colour eyes to you see in this baffling optical illusion? Confusing image will trick you

There are many optical illusions out there which use colours, patterns and lighting to deceive our brains.

This one simply asks people to say how many colours they see when they look at an image full of multiple eyes. It’s a little bit spooky, so it’s the ideal illusion to share with your friends and family this Halloween week.

So, take a look at the eyes in the image shown below. Which colours do you see?

What does the image show?

The image shows four rows of five eyes, so 20 eyes in total. The question is, how many colours are the eyes in the image.

Where has the image come from?

The illusion has been shared by online contact lens retailer Lenstore, which was founded in 2008.

What is the answer to the optical illusion?

The answer to how many colours of eyes are in the image may surprise you as there are only five. In fact, all rows of eyes are identical copies, but the changing colour lines make each row of eyes look a different colour.

If you look closely at the image, you can see that the rows have different colour lines running across them, which have the effect of tinting the circle around them.

The blue, green and red stripes all tint the area around them in different ways, resulting in apparent colour changes. The illusion relies on changing the stripes in the foreground and still works, even if you change the background colour. While zooming in weakens the illusion, zooming out makes the effect even stronger.

How does the optical illusion work?

This skewed perception of colour is caused by a phenomenon known as the Munker-White’s illusion.

Munker-White’s illusion originally comes from White’s illusion, which refers to the perceived lightness of a shape and was described by Psychologist Michael White in the 1960s. He found that the same two grey rectangles appear to have lighter or darker shades of grey when placed next to white or black objects. In the 1970s, Hans Munker, another psychologist, noticed that the same effect applies to coloured objects.

Scientists are still not quite sure what exactly is happening in the brain to cause this illusion and have different theories. Some think it sets in during the early stages of visual processing, when the light first hits the retina, while others think the effects happen later in the brain as it processes the data.

Some people on Twitter reported that the illusion no longer worked for them once they found out how they work, while others said they could still see the colour changes when they look at the overall image.

So, what do you see now?

How can I see more optical illusions?

To see even more mind-bending optical illusions, you can check out out dedicated optical illusons page. This page is frequently updated, so be sure to bookmark it so you can check back on a regular basis for more illusions to delight and confuse you.