Can You See The Colors? A Visual Challenge

The latest optical illusion sweeping the internet in the last 24 hours has gathered hundreds of thousands of views and surprised reactions. This is an age-old technique based on a series of red, green, and black lines. Focusing steadily on them takes away our ability to see colors outside the black-and-white spectrum. 

The unique technique was developed by an American psychologist. He claimed that 15 minutes of focusing on these drawings can cause visual tricks, like identifying people or objects as 'green', or seeing only black and white for several hours.

Curious to try? Go ahead, but be warned: Don’t focus on these 'masterpieces' for more than 15 minutes (and if you do go that far, share how it feels with us).

First, look at the black-and-white lines for a few minutes: 

Now focus on the red-black stripes:

 

In the third step, all you have to do is focus for a few seconds on the last drawing:

Now, look at all the lines for a few seconds, and notice that slowly the lines will appear 'pinkish' or even 'greenish' at the edges. What do you think? 

Some online users claim it’s the same effect as the infamous blue-black-gold dress challenge, where many struggled to decide the dress's exact color:

So why does it happen to us? In fact, quite a few speculations have been raised by professionals from various fields. One of them suggests that prolonged viewing of these 'optical' challenges can damage important memory and learning centers in the brain, which are responsible for receiving and interpreting signals from the environment.