Comments on: Amazing Optical Illusion

By: RonD

RonD — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 22:07:17 +0000

I agree square B is the same color as square A. But they had to “cheat” to make it so. Square A in not in the shadow of the cylinder. Square B is in the shadow. So square B should be darker than A due to the shadow (like the four dark squares around B that are also in the shadow). But B is not darker. I think that’s cheating. Still it is a neat illusion.

By: Timbo

Timbo — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:27:05 +0000

My cataracted up left eye can’t see the “A” but can see the “B”.

But I made a card with two holes in it to hit the “A” square the the “B” square, and they are the same shade.

Our mental processing of vision is adding contrast and adjusting brightness, based upon what is surrounding the focal point of your interest. Probably, if you dilated your iris, you could see through the trick.

By: Jim Cotter

Jim Cotter — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:57:28 +0000

True or Untrue. It doesn’t matter. What we *see* is true – I see two different shades so for me that is true, I couldn’t care less what others including the originator says it is.

In the real world that attitude works out just fine. Go around thinking is this true or untrue for about one hour and you’ll get nothing done.

By: andrewj

andrewj — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 13:50:20 +0000

All my tests in PS show it as being real. It might just take advantage of a weakness in PS which would be much less suprising than the illusion.

By: David

David — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:54:57 +0000

Mac folks have a built-in utility called DigitalColor Meter that you can find under the Utilities folder.

By: Gizmola

Gizmola — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:38:59 +0000

I didn’t believe it either till i fired up pixie and checked the rgb values. For those of you who still aren’t convinced (although the article explains why our brain is designed to deceive us and that this is a good thing) pixie is a great free little windows only (sorry mac folks) app that pops up a window and dropper that you can put over both of the boxes to measure the color values.

Pixie here -> http://www.nattyware.com

By: ECA

ECA — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 05:14:35 +0000

WRONG, its a fake…look at the shading on the BARS….
someone didnt turn shading OFF.

By: Greg Allen

Greg Allen — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 04:21:03 +0000

Wow, that optical illusion is absolutely fantastic.

I’m trained and experienced in color matching and it still threw me off.

By: shaine mata

shaine mata — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 03:00:07 +0000

If you stare at B for a little bit, the colors of A and B look the same. It goes away if shift your gaze.

By: Mark Derail

Mark Derail — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:19:14 +0000

Then run this story! http://tinyurl.com/33t2s7
Software patch could boost MPG in gas-powered vehicles

By: John C Dvorak

John C Dvorak — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 00:08:14 +0000

It’s Sunday — that means features!!!

By: Uncle Dave

Uncle Dave — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:59:30 +0000

#3: Very funny! While we often get people criticizing us for posting too many news-related stories, you come along and criticize us for not enough. Guess we’re doing things right!

By: JFStan

JFStan — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:42:34 +0000

This is one of my favourites, as it is so unbelievable when just looking at it. It definitely FWYH.

By: Dested

Dested — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:41:49 +0000

Slow news day?

By: John C Dvorak

John C Dvorak — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:25:03 +0000

i have seen this before and have always been convinced it is some sort of weird hoax. So I downloaded a universal eye-dropper that allows you to get the color values of everything on the screen.

Indeed the color values of those two boxes are identical.