
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