Weekly Dose of Woah #10 [February 6, 2019]

Nothing quite makes you go woah like a good ol‘ visual illusion.

Seeing proof that your eyes don’t see any objective “reality” always has a jarring effect on your consciousness.

We thought we’d seen them all until we found this new Munker Illusion.

Check it out:

Now…what if we told you that all of the circles in that image are the same color?

Also known as White’s Illusion, this Munker’s illusion works by taking advantage of a phenomenon known as framing.

The Munker illusion appears to be a function of the framing colors (i.e. the bars) rather than central color (i.e. the circle’s color). This means that the Munker illusion persists even if the central color goes to 0% saturation, i.e., white!

The illusory central color (i.e. circles) appear to take on some of the color of the foreground framing color rather than the background framing color.

Because the Munker illusion is solely a function of foreground framing color, opposite framing colors produce the greatest illusion effect. So with a red central circle, yellow and blue framing leads to a bigger effect than yellow and orange framing.

Because the Munker illusion is a function of foreground framing color, the illusion colors are a blend of the foreground framing and the central circle. So blue foreground framing + red circle –> purple illusion color, yellow foreground framing + red circle –> orange illusion color, and violet foreground framing + yellow circle –> salmon illusion color, green foreground framing + yellow circle –> lemon illusion color.

For more of an explanation, check out this post.

Crazy, though, yea? It’s hard to believe at first, just like this shading illusion where the blocks A and B are actually the same shade of grey.