# The brain deceives the eye



## Northerner (Oct 26, 2019)

This is actually a black and white photo, but an artist has drawn color lines through it. Your brain is filling in the rest of the colors even though they aren't there. Look closer....

Work by artist Øyvind Kolås modifying a photo by "Chuwa (Francis)."


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## Eddy Edson (Oct 26, 2019)

So cool.


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## Robin (Oct 26, 2019)

Brilliant! But does it work equally well for all colours for everyone? Daughter and I find the red doesn’t work as well as the other colours, so were wondering if it’s the same for everyone or whether we’ve got a hereditary defect!


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## Northerner (Oct 26, 2019)

Robin said:


> Brilliant! But does it work equally well for all colours for everyone? Daughter and I find the red doesn’t work as well as the other colours, so were wondering if it’s the same for everyone or whether we’ve got a hereditary defect!


I'm the same regarding the red  Green, yellow and blue all work very well


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## Andy HB (Oct 26, 2019)

I find that if I don't look directly at the red, it works much better. Also, if I stare at the shoes of the guy just right of the middle, all the shirts take a distinct hue.

This is why we can never be sure of what we see is 'true'!


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## Drummer (Oct 26, 2019)

It is a black and white photo with lines on it - I always knew that my brain/mind/whatever is not quite the same as many others.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Oct 26, 2019)

Just saw this online. It’s a fascinating example of the sort of optical mixing that our eyes do all the time. The impressionists used this sort of thing to give their paintings extra fizz, by getting the eye to make the colour on the hop. 

Full colour printed imagery is usually made from overlaid grids of dots in 4 colours of ink, and screens are vertical bars of varying amounts of three colours of light. 

Great to see an example of the way the eye and brain perceive colour and tone separately.


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## Flower (Oct 26, 2019)

It sounds really interesting but it definitely doesn't work with proliferative retinopathy and partial sight, my brain has given up trying to deceive my eye! It looks like a faded black and white photo to me  I do have to write the colour of clothes in the labels to give me a fighting chance so no surprise really.


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## Andy HB (Oct 26, 2019)

Benny G said:


> Squint your eyes and everything looks black and white.



That doesn't work for me. 

If I squint, I see the colour even more (similar to me concentrating on the shoes that I mentioned before)


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## everydayupsanddowns (Oct 26, 2019)

Ah.... interesting. Having been looking at this on my phone until now, I've just seen the comparatively large version on laptop which is much less successful for me.

I wonder if those who have struggled will find it easier if the image size is reduced like this:


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## nonethewiser (Oct 27, 2019)

Clever, won't try to understand how it works.


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## C&E Guy (Oct 28, 2019)

So, your brain sees things that are not really there?

That explains why my brain saw England beat New Zealand at rugby. Must have been an optical illusion .....


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## Docb (Oct 28, 2019)

Robin said:


> Brilliant! But does it work equally well for all colours for everyone? Daughter and I find the red doesn’t work as well as the other colours, so were wondering if it’s the same for everyone or whether we’ve got a hereditary defect!



The red does not work for me.  The yellow does and the green is about 50/50.  Then my brain isn't wired properly, I know that.


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## TheClockworkDodo (Oct 28, 2019)

I saw colour for about a second, and then my brain registered the coloured lines over the black and white photo and now that's all I can see (whatever the size of the photo).


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## TheClockworkDodo (Oct 28, 2019)

R (who is colour-blind) thinks it's a photo which is partly black and white and partly colour.


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