A weird weird trick depicting parallel bars with different purple shapes divides the internet.
Twitter users are hotly debating how many different shadows the image shows, with some seeing 11 and 14 and one user even saying they will see 17 screens.
The image was posted by Twitter user @ 0UTR0EG0 earlier this month, who said: ‘How many colors do you see ???? I see 3. ‘
How many shades we can see could be the result of Mach Bands deception – at places where two colors come together, some of us see changes in blackout even though they are not.
But there may not be a definitive answer – different people will see different sizes of showers based on eye cones, or even how much light there is in the environment around them.
The image was posted by Twitter user @ 0UTR0EG0, who said: ‘How many colors do you see ???? I can see 3. ‘The pink piece on the right is very dubious, although some Twitter users said that it has six colors by itself
The lighting conditions of your home may affect how much light is coming from your appliance and generally how good your vision is.
Twitter user @ jtae0613 said: ‘Everyone here is upset .. it mostly has something to do with your product device (smartphone, laptop etc), [because] the color output varies a lot more between devices than you think!
‘Also if you see it in dark or light mode, the light around you in real life etc.’
MailOnline only sees six – wait, do that seven – but you’ll see just narrow lines splitting up the big bunch of dark purple-pink on the right.
One user commented that they saw 17 screens, and marked them – but the consensus was somewhere between 11 and 15
According to one UK-based expert in perception and understanding, how many shapes we see may even depend on our gender.
‘Even though everyone sees more or less the same range of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to us, there are still individual differences,’ said Dr Michael J. Proulx, neuroscientist at the University. Bath, to MailOnline.
‘Average vision is trichromatic – there are three types of cone cells in the eye that come together to allow us to see the colors we see.
‘Color dye has dichromacy, where only two types of cone cells are available, so the ability to see color is reduced, and this is more common in males.
‘There is even tetrachromacy where there are more than three types of cone cells so that even more colors can be seen, and this is more common in women.
‘In addition to these major differences, the eyes of each screener have different optics that screen the incoming light in different ways, with different densities. absorb the pigment in the eye that affects light. ‘
The ratios of the different types of cone cells – the photoreceptor cells in the retinas of our eyes – can also change.
‘All of these differences mean that different people can see more or less colors than others – and this image pretty much captures that for a portion of the color spectrum !,’ said Dr Proulx .
One Twitter user pointed out that seeing more than 11 screens is the result of eye deception where the transition between colors looks like a distinct color in itself.
This effect is called Mach Bands deception – an optical phenomenon named after the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach (1838-1916).
The vision – originally described for gray bands – adds to the contrast at the edges of slightly different shapes as soon as they touch each other, by triggering a fringe in it. the visual system of mankind.
Mach Bands deception is an optical phenomenon named after the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach, who first demonstrated it. The effect adds to the contrast between the slightly different shades of gray shadows, as soon as they contact each other, by triggering a fringe in a human visual system.
But once the bands separate, Mach Bands’ deception is no longer seen.
For the sake of argument, let’s say there are about 10 different shapes in a straight purple band image that are currently waiting on Twitter.
At the points where bars of two different shades come into contact, the human eye can see another shadow.
So, for example, the very edge of a light purple bar looks even lighter when next to a darker dark bar.
The edge of the dark brown bar, meanwhile, looks even darker when it goes up against the darker bar.
This is due to an autoimmune process in our brains called delayed inhibition that helps us define the edges of objects.
Lateral inhibition is the ability of stimulating neurons in the eye – or zero cells – to reduce the activity of its neighbors, which creates a contrast in stimuli that allow greater sensory perception.
Some people experience the effects of Mach Bands deception more than others – which is why images like this one create such a strong debate on social media.
Some optical illusions can deceive you into seeing moving shapes, but it seems that this one can make you notice colors or shapes that are not in reality.