Color Illusions
Explore classic color illusions, from simultaneous contrast and the Bezold effect to the Pac-Man illusion, also known as the Lilac Chaser. Adjust each one and see how surrounding color, light, and motion change what you perceive.
Simultaneous Contrast
Place the same color on two different backgrounds and it changes. It can look lighter or darker, brighter or duller, even warmer or cooler. These experiments show how surroundings shift a color's value, hue, and saturation.
Described by Michel Eugène Chevreul in The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colours, 1839
The Pac-Man Illusion
Relax your eyes on the moving dots and the missing dot appears as a completely different hue — its complementary afterimage. The longer you stare the more prominent the illusion.
Discovered by Jeremy Hinton · also known as the Lilac Chaser
All three panels share the exact same hue — yet black stripes make it appear darker and more muted, while white stripes make it look lighter and more vivid. Context rewrites color perception entirely.
Stripes and Saturation
Also known as the spreading effect or color assimilation
The same hue looks more saturated and vivid surrounded by light, and deeper and richer surrounded by dark — identical color, completely different perception. Surrounding value changes everything.
Bezold Effect
Described by Wilhelm von Bezold in Die Farbenlehre, 1874
Identical Circles
Every circle is the exact same color. Yet they each look different — lighter, darker, shifted in hue.
Every disc is the same color — stripes create an optical mixture that tricks your eyes into seeing purples, greens, and yellows that aren't there.
The Confetti Illusion
created by University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) engineering professor David Novick
Figure & Ground
Change the outline, change the depth. What advances and what recedes is never fixed — it's decided by context.
This is chromostereopsis: the lens in your eye bends long wavelengths (red) and short wavelengths (blue) by slightly different amounts, so the two colors come into focus at different depths.
3D, No Glasses
Color & Depth
Warm colors advance while cool colors recede. Red and blue show it most strongly. Try other pairs and backgrounds to see how the depth shifts.
The same color looks different as a small dot than as a large field. A small patch is pulled by the color around it; a large one holds its own. Change the colors and compare the dot to the circle.