Munker-White Optical Illusion

Article: See Those Colorful Balls? Yeah, They're All Actually Beige
Source: ScienceAlert
Published: May 20, 2021

Inspired by the work of Akiyoshi Kitaoka, David Novick started crafting optical illusions for his own research program on human-computer interaction. One such illusion posted on his Twitter account went "unexpectedly viral," and appeared in the newspaper in 2018, to his surprise. Since then, Novick has been tweeting two new illusions each week, sometimes getting rediscovered in the media. Depicted is an example of the Munker-White optical illusion. In this case, twelve orbs are shown which are perceived to be of varying colors, although they are all the same shade of beige. Each orb is overlaid with stripes of varying colors. As Novick explains, the illusion works because our acuity for shape is better than our acuity for color; the presence of the stripes in the foreground causes the colors to blend with the adjacent spaces, though the outlines of the spheres remain distinct. Removing the stripes eliminates the illusion; however, changing the colors to grayscale does not. Referred to as White's illusion, the illusion in that case pertains to lightness instead of color. Gray orbs with white stripes in the foreground will appear lighter, while gray orbs with black foreground stripes will appear darker. Changing the lightness or color of the foreground stripes amplifies or diminishes the effect of the illusion, which can be replicated by zooming in or out of the image on a screen. Using complementary colors, such as red and green, cancels out the effect of the illusion, resulting in spheres that look white or gray. Novick next plans to experiment with different color combinations as well as 3D versus 2D images to see how these alter the perception of the illusion.

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