White's illusion is a brightness illusion where certain stripes of a black and white grating is partially replaced by a gray rectangle (Fig. 1). Both of the gray bars of A and B are the same color and opacity. The brightness of the gray pieces appear to shift toward the brightness of the top and bottom bordering stripes. This is interesting because lateral inhibition cannot explain this occurrence. This occurs even when the gray patches in the black stripes are bordered by more white than black (and conversely for the gray patches in the white stripes).
Read more about White's Illusion: Lateral Inhibition, Belongingness, Other Experiments/articles Involving White's Illusion
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or illusion:
“Would you ascend to Heaven and bodiless dwell?
Or take your bodies honorless to Hell?
In Heaven you have heard no marriage is,
No white flesh tinder to your lecheries,”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred from one perception to another. This painting here. I bought it 10 years ago for 60 thousand dollars. I could sell it today for 600. The illusion has become real and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it.”
—Oliver Stone (b. 1946)