Shades of Grey

the easy way to tell is to stick your finger on the screen and cover up the transition between the two halves, so that you only see the top and bottom....

Do you mean the sky-blue top?
Or, the "carpet-like" green/brownish bottom?

Wescli Wardest wrote: A good lesson in not judging or taking things at face value; or by our first impression.

Warning: Spoiler!

I like how it shows that if one removes the division, the thing perceived to be separating them, then we can easily see they are really the same.
Don't believe me, lay your finger across the screen on top the divide between the two pieces.

I did what's in your spoiler tags. And I literally just blurted out: "You're f****** kidding me. Holy crap!"

12 :
Colours blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavours numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart. The Master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky.

I think I posted that pic once a few years back with some other optical illusions....some really cools pics....wish I could remember what thread it was....

Still a very cool trick

The bottom is lighter. So say we all!

Alan wrote: Do you mean the sky-blue top?
Or, the "carpet-like" green/brownish bottom?

The boxes, or the carpet like thing.

My rhetorical question above was based upon a prejudice that these particular kinds of questions are leading questions intended to overcome perceptual assumptions. To ask if the question referred to the top and bottom of the page was my misguided response to the obviousness that the posted question regards the lozenges; which is, in fact, exactly what the question regards. Accessing the source page confirms the question is specific to the lozenges. A perfect example of my over-thinking a simple question.

To the point, perception is culturally determined.

Our brain sees what it has been conditioned (taught, etc.) to see; that is why it is an ‘optical illusion’. We see a flat image as three dimensional because of our cultural training. Plait comments, “It’s extremely easy to fool our eyes and brain, and we should never simply trust that what we see, what we think is going on, is a fair and accurate representation of reality.”

Reality is itself an interpretation. Reality is perceived as what we have already decided it is.

Artistic representation as a form of optical illusion is ancient, that is, creating the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface. Trompe-l’oeil (French, ‘deceive the eye’) is the most obvious example but there numerous other examples, such as, the forced perspective illusions on a theatrical stage.

Plait says, “In the picture here, we perceive the scene as three-dimensional, with the light source to the upper left (note the shadow on the ground). The upper lozenge is shaded so that we see it as tilted away from us at its top (making the bottom look shaded), and the bottom one tilted the opposite way, so its top is lit. That means our brain sees the upper lozenge as lit, while the bottom one is shadowed.”

Plait is mistaken, the shade illusion does not have its source in the brain. It is not a biologically determined perception, but seeing the lower lozenge as darker is the result of a culturally informed mind that is trained to see light sources and shade, and so, perception is the result of cultural training and experience that decides/perceives the lower lozenge as darker.

huh...even with the trick I don't see it. Top is darker. Bottom is lighter.

MCSH wrote:

Alan wrote: Do you mean the sky-blue top?
Or, the "carpet-like" green/brownish bottom?

The boxes, or the carpet like thing.

I see several tops and bottoms.