The Woman’s Eyes in This Photo Are Not Blue

optical illusion blue eyes tiktok

A mind-bending optical illusion tricks the viewer into seeing a woman with blue eyes in a photo — when her eyes are actually gray.

TikTok serial illusionist Dean Jackson posted a viral video that features a black-and-white photo of a woman’s face.

@beatonthebeeb Are her eyes blue? ##opticalillusion##opticalillusions##mindgame##mindgames ##colours##complementarycolors ♬ original sound – Dean Jackson

But when Jackson puts a red filter over the top of the photograph, it appears as if the woman’s eye color is blue.

However, the woman’s eyes are actually gray and the viewer’s brain has invented the blue color of the woman’s eyes. The black-and-white image to which this filter has been applied has no color.

Blue light cannot pass through a red filter and furthermore, there is no blue in the original photo.

Using a color selector reveals that the woman’s eyes are actually a neutral gray.

In the clip, which amassed over 900,000 views, Jackson explains how a viewer’s brain invents the blue color in the woman’s eyes in the photo.

“Your brain detects the pigment — the grey area around the pupil — and it assumes that the red filter has trapped the blue light,” Jackson, who goes by the TikTok username @beetonthebeeb, explains.

“So it tries to help you out, as your brain should, by putting the blue color back into the picture for you, and your brain is completely misleading you in the process.”

Therefore, if a brain recognizes the context of the image and believes it should appear blue, it can interpret the grey light as such.

@beatonthebeeb #opticalillusion #opticalillusions #mindgame #mindgames #complementarycolors #colours #deanjackson ♬ Away With Me – Andrew Joy

In a previous video, Jackson showed another example of the brain’s ability to do this. In the clip, the illusionist presented an image of a grey Coke can covered with stripes of a cyan filter.

The stripes with the filter appear red because a viewer expects it to be that shade, despite the cyan filter blocking out all red light.


Image credits: Header photo via TikTok/@beatonthebeeb.

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