Freaky optical illusion tricks you into seeing distorted faces – what it’s doing to your brain

A CRINGE optical illusion that has tricked thousands into seeing distorted faces has gone viral on social media.

Optical illusions sometimes work by using shapes and motion to confuse the human brain.

Tik Tok / stevepsychology

A cringe optical illusion that has tricked thousands into seeing distorted faces has gone viral on social media.[/caption]

And one TikTok user with the handle @StevePsychology recently exemplified this in a 47-second reel.

First, the content creator, named Steve Rathe, warned his users that this optical illusion is “a bit scary.”

Then he directed his one million followers to look at a cross (+) located in between two image boxes that showed a series of faces.

“So what you have to do is look directly at the cross in the middle of the screen instead of looking at the faces head-on,” Steve said.

“What you’re probably noticing if you’re looking at the cross is that the faces look distorted or alien,” he added.

However, the faces have not been altered and appear normal if you focus on them.

How does this work?

Steve explained that this optical illusion works because of something called the “flashed face distortion effect.”

It works via our brains filling in gaps when we are given limited information.

Steve explained further: “We have pretty bad peripheral vision. So what your brain is probably doing is noticing the differences between the two images and exaggerating so the images look like caricatures.”

Users’ reactions

Nearly 70,000 TikTok users have liked the real since it went viral and hundreds left comments expressing their thoughts on the video.

“The longer you look, the more exaggerated it gets,” one shocked user wrote.

“Wow super interesting,” a second TikToker proclaimed.

“The brain is awesome. completely amazing,” a third person added.