The Edmondson Blog


The Same Colour Illusion


Are square A and B the same color? They are. The above illusion, called the same colour illusion, illustrates that purely human observations in science may be ambiguous or inaccurate. Even such a seemingly direct perception as relative colour. Similar illusions exist on the sky, such as the size of the Moon near the horizon, or the apparent shapes of astronomical objects. The advent of automated, reproducible, measuring devices such as CCDs have made science in general and astronomy in particular less prone to, but not free of, human-biased illusions.

1 Responses to “The Same Colour Illusion”

  1. # Blogger Ron

    I couldn't believe this one so I copied it into Photoshop and used the eyedropper tool to sample both colours - I have to say that the squares were identical at 120 for each of the RGB channels. And when you strip out the rest of the picture they can be seen to be clearly the same.

    Uncle Ron  

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