Color perception Wednesday
As a designer, I play with perception a lot. How human brains perceive their environments fascinates me to no end. I ran this gem last September and six months later it still amazes me.
I imply wow. It's an lively, inanimate item.
Well, I came upon two more good illusions on Twitter the other day. A web developer who writes Indigo Thoughts reprinted this one from Scientific American .
Follow these commands:
- Click on each of the graphics below, this will bring up a much larger image in a new browser.
- Hold a finger in front of your nose and focus intently on it. This will cross your eyes.
- Slowly remove your finger from view
- On your screen you will see three boxes. The middle box will show the impossible color, a bluish yellow or a reddish green. Make sure the crosses line up.
Can you spot yellowish blue?
Can you see reddish green ?
These exercises illustrate what are called impossible colors. Reddish green and yellowish blue are not the brown and green you'd expect them to be. Rather they are what they're called. These illusions takes a little bit of concentration to master but when you do master them you'll be observing a gaping flaw in your eyes' and brain's ability to process color. These impossible colors illustrate the opponent process and you can read more about it here .