New Scientist TV: A new kind of colour blind: "A new kind of colour blind
17:50 7 January 2011
Illusions
Catherine de Lange, reporter
First you see it, then suddenly it's gone. A new illusion (see video, above) shows how our perception of objects changes as soon as they start moving.
At first, the ring of dots is motionless and it's easy to tell that the dots are changing color. When the ring begins to rotate, however, the dots suddenly appear to stop changing. The faster the ring moves, the less the colours appear to change. But in reality, they were changing the whole time, at the same rate. As the video shows, the illusion also works for brightness, shape and size.
The phenomenon - change blindness - by which observers don't notice that an image is changing in front of their eyes, isn't new.
Nor is the notion that motion affects the way we see objects...read more"
