Colour is an Optical Illusion – Follow the instructions at the bottom of the image.
To see that colour is an optical illusion in the image above, follow the instructions on the bottom of the image. I promise that nothing is going to jump out, or scare you, this is just a cool experiment showing that colour is an optical illusion.
Obviously, when I write that colour is an optical illusion I don’t mean colour itself, I am referring to colour in the animated image above. This optical illusion relies on a quirk of our eyes known as afterimage or ghost image. I have mentioned this in a previous blog here: https://paulbrook.co.uk/inverse-image-optical-illusion/
This time, however, the after image is one that includes colour, instead of being monochromatic. The negative style image of that you are seeing are the inverse of the colours that you will ‘see’ on the walls of the black and white photograph. The afterimage, therefore, inverts those colours in the same way that a roll of photographic negatives are inverted to produce holiday photos that look as they do in real life.
Colour is an Optical Illusion – Instructions
Here is what you need to do in order to see colour on the black an white photograph above:
- Stare at the small black dot in the centre of the negative style image.
- Keep staring at the small black dot until the loading bar at the bottom of the image loads completely.
- Notice that the walls have colour on them.
- Then those colours will begin to fade and you will realise that the image is, in fact, black and white.
The strange thing is that when I first saw the black and white image, I assumed that the black and white image was the illusion, because the colours had been so vivid.