photo courtesy | Yahoo photos
photo courtesy | Yahoo photos

Ankush Goel just emailed me about this picture that’s going viral over in the US! If you stare at the red dot on this woman’s nose for thirty seconds; then, look over at a blank white space you should see the correct version of the image! Guess who? Here’s how it works: stare long enough at an object and the eye’s photoreceptors (particularly the color-sensitive cone cells) lose sensitivity from overstimulation. Divert the eyes to a blank space, and the surrounding cone cells send out a much stronger signal. The brain interprets this discrepancy as looking at the precise opposite colors, in what is known as a ‘negative afterimage.’ Nifty, no?

Thank you Yahoo! xoxo