I’ve just experienced a flashback! Kinda cool since I haven’t had one since the early 70’s. Now if you could have inagodadivida in the background I would really be back in time!
It was the 70’s. I and some guy that I knew had donned dresses earlier in the evening to amuse some girls who we were visiting. Inagodadavita was blaring and suddenly smoke was billowing out across the ceiling of their apartment. An unattended teddy bear had been ignited by a lit candle…
... what does the brain do when our eyes detect wavelengths from both ends of the light spectrum at once (i.e. red and violet light)? Generally speaking, it has two options for interpreting the input data:
a) Sum the input responses to produce a colour halfway between red and violet in the spectrum (which would in this case produce green – not a very representative colour of a red and violet mix)
b) Invent a new colour halfway between red and violet
Magenta is the evidence that the brain takes option b – it has apparently constructed a colour to bridge the gap between red and violet, because such a colour does not exist in the light spectrum. Magenta has no wavelength attributed to it, unlike all the other spectrum colours.
I also noticed that after staring at it for a while, the magenta dots begin to disappear one by one, almost as if being eaten by the green dot. Like in Pac-Man.
My brain seems to take a second or two to “create” the green dot. It doesn’t show up until I’ve stared at it for about a full cycle and a half. And if I stare at it long enough the purple dots start to get slightly off center green halos. Neat.
My brain seems to take a second or two to “create” the green dot. It doesn’t show up until I’ve stared at it for about a full cycle and a half. And if I stare at it long enough the purple dots start to get slightly off center green halos. Neat.
Yeah, I noticed the halos right off the bat when I looked at it. Some of the green dots even appeared inside the circle. Yet another example of how the brain can be fooled into seeing what really isn’t there. Like ghosts. And angels.
Is it significant that all of our brains are seeing a green dot?
If anything, it would prove that our brains work very similar, at least in processing colors. We all see the green dot, but evidently we all do have slight differences in how the entire picture is processed in it’s entirety.
Geez, even a pragmatist in optical illusions. I kept staring at it, but couldn’t make the non-existent green dot appear.
Occam
Was the picture moving? It is a moving gif. There is one empty space, which for me first turns a light violet ghost, and then to green dot circling slowly eating all the red dots like a little pacman, until there is only the circling green dot.
