I find optical illusions, color or otherwise, fascinating. They make us question our eyes and show that science works in mysterious ways.

These images are wonderful examples of the optical illusion of color.

What is an optical illusion?

It is an illusion caused by the visual system and characterized by a visual percept that arguably appears to differ from reality.

So basically optical illusion is what we see which is far from reality.

Optical illusion of color examples

1. Animal illusion

This animal-themed optical illusion was posted by David Novick and has been attracting some attention online on Twitter.

It looks as though the cats and dogs are different colors, right? Well, look again – they’re actually all exactly the same color.

2. Dress color

This dress took the internet by storm and categorized people into two categories- one who saw the dress as white and gold and the other as blue and black.

I mean look at the difference in the colors. They are on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Millions of people voted at buzzfeed.com and around 70% see the dress as white and gold. But the other 30% are not wrong too.

If you just see a small part of the dress which you think is white without looking at the surroundings, you’ll see it’s actually giving a bluish hue.

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3. Adelson’s checker shadow illusion

The square marked as B looked considerably lighter than the square A but in reality, they are of the same color.

B looks lighter because of the shadow being cast upon it. I know it’s hard to believe but if you want to confirm, you can use an eyedropper tool.

4. White’s illusion

All grey rectangles are of equal luminance, although the ones in the dark stripes appear brighter than the ones in the bright stripes.

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5. Grey or Blue?

Focus on the black dot in the bottom right-hand corner and the moving grey stripe will eventually turn blue.

6. Pac- man illusion

Follow the movement of the rotating pink dot with your eyes and the dots will remain only one color, pink. But if you stare at the black + in the center, the moving dot will turn green.

Why do optical illusions happen?

Scientists have tried to understand the real cause behind optical illusions but have not found any specific answer.

We know that information that our eyes gather goes on a long, complicated journey as it travels to the brain.

Some of the confusion happens early in that journey. The eyes are trying to tell the brain something else and the brain is interpreting it as something else.

Maybe scientists will come up with an answer to why this happens!