There is not a single red pixel in this picture, but yet the strawberries appear red
It’s the optical illusion blowing the Internet’s mind. The bizarre picture seems straightforward enough at first glance. A strawberry tart with the worst Instagram filter ever. So, if someone asked you what colour the strawberries were, the obvious answer might be red. They are strawberries. Strawberries are red. And even in this dreadful blue-grey tinted picture, they still appear to be red. Except, despite everything your mind is telling you, the strawberries in the picture are not red in colour. Confused? Don’t be.
In this picture, the strawberries are made up of grey and green pixels. Seriously. There's not a single red pixel in it.
The picture was tweeted out by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka, who teaches psychology at Ritsumeikan University in Japan. Turns out, Professor Kitaoka studies visual illusions.
Having flashbacks to "The Dress?" You know, that unbelievably viral picture that divided the Internet in 2015. Blue and black or white and gold – everyone had an opinion.
The phenomenon of colour constancy is common to both pictures. As Bevil Conway, an expert on visual perception, explains to Motherboard, over time, our brains have evolved to "colour correct" so the colours we see look the same no matter the lighting. Otherwise, objects would appear to be different colours outdoors under a clear, blue sky versus indoors in fluorescent or incandescent light. And that would lead to a lot of confusion.
So, even though the picture tweeted only includes grey and green pixels and zero red ones, we still see red strawberries.
The illusion is also helped by the fact that we recognise the objects in the picture as strawberries, which we typically associate with the colour red.
There you have it, science is cool!
In this picture, the strawberries are made up of grey and green pixels. Seriously. There's not a single red pixel in it.
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— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@AkiyoshiKitaoka) February 28, 2017
Strawberries appear to be reddish, though the pixels are not. pic.twitter.com/Ginyhf61F7
The picture was tweeted out by Professor Akiyoshi Kitaoka, who teaches psychology at Ritsumeikan University in Japan. Turns out, Professor Kitaoka studies visual illusions.
Having flashbacks to "The Dress?" You know, that unbelievably viral picture that divided the Internet in 2015. Blue and black or white and gold – everyone had an opinion.
#FlashbackFriday What colour is the dress? pic.twitter.com/67Sn4AbfhP
— Anna whitworth (@45_fangirl_45) September 30, 2016
The phenomenon of colour constancy is common to both pictures. As Bevil Conway, an expert on visual perception, explains to Motherboard, over time, our brains have evolved to "colour correct" so the colours we see look the same no matter the lighting. Otherwise, objects would appear to be different colours outdoors under a clear, blue sky versus indoors in fluorescent or incandescent light. And that would lead to a lot of confusion.
So, even though the picture tweeted only includes grey and green pixels and zero red ones, we still see red strawberries.
@social_brains I isolated a few of the colors that appear most "red" in the strawberries and put them on the white background to the right. pic.twitter.com/GJJ9PJqNxt
— Carson Mell (@carsonmell) February 28, 2017
@Jamie7Keller ya, fundamentally the reason why the trick works is because my brain already "knows" what color the strawberries should be.
— Jordan Miller (@JordanMiller406) February 28, 2017
The illusion is also helped by the fact that we recognise the objects in the picture as strawberries, which we typically associate with the colour red.
There you have it, science is cool!
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