OK I've got a question for you all, I've been thinking about things like color perception and depth perception for years. I ran across this color test patern (A) in a thread on the Poser forum about color blindness. I was wondering if others see the number that is supposed to be there? Also B and C were photoshop picts from a bum map inverter I'm working on for poser 4. Does one of these look indented and the other raised? if so which do you see as which? There isn't any right or wrong answer as far as I know, but any input would help me understand how others see things. Why the Bryce Community you ask? Probably ther is no good answer except I've come to know the art work of a lot of you and your answers will have more meaning because of that. - TJ

OK, first off, I've seen those tests before. This one is a fake. It's a sick joke that someone doctored up from the actual test. The actual test and some others, btw, can be found right here. As for indented or raised portion, it completely depends on where the light source is! That's the same image rotated 180 and flipped horizontally. Incedentally, both appear raised to me.

Can't see a number in the first pic - and I ALWAYS see the numbers I'm s'posed to (good colour vision here, though if it's more than 3 feet away I need me glasses!). As for the indent/outdent thing, B looks indented to me, and C outdented (if there is such a word!). Hope that helps. p.s. Have been to the pub, so that might influence my perception! :))

There isn't a number in the first picture. It might be an example of how a dog might see it. They have black white and brown supposedly. These things usually have pastels of red green/yellow or blue. You usually think of light coming from above, So B should be indented and C should be sticking out. But they both look like they're sticking out to me too. I think it's just because the green box is large enough that the edge falls outside my peripheral vision. Anyway when I read I only use about the inside 2 degrees of my vision. The edge is 4 or 5 degrees from the dot where I am sitting in front of my monitor. I keep looking over to the edge on B and C to try and find another reference, a shadow or something to sort them out. Because there isn't any the dot with the more detail gets pulled to the center of my attention (closer) in each case. Hope this helps:0)

I'm partially red green colorblind, so cannot see anything in the "A" pic above at all. B and C could either be raised or depressed, it all depends on whether or not the light is coming from the top or bottom.

Most people also don't have properly calibrated monitors which will skew the results a bit. B is indented c is raised....

I see no number either and I know my colour vision is ok - I have a known very slight perceptual diff between my eyes due to a childhood infection of the optic nerve. One eye, other eye, both -still nothing. B struck me as in and C out because I nomally get light from above so this is the way my brain expects to see it. I can however, tell it otherwise and can make them go the otherway around. Hope that helps.

B is out C is in and there is nothing to see in the dots.

I'm with darkginger, same results here.

The dots are dots - I believe JohnPenn is correct that this is not a real eye test. The circles to me initially looked like circles. If I look at them longer, they tend to look raised. I personally have noticed that most of these sorts of optical illusions do look raised to me, even ones that are meant to look indented. Lin

Hi TJ, the A image is a fake as johnpenn pointed out, it would have either 1 or 2 numbers in red and/or green, hence the color blindness, B and C look the same to me, except for the brighter color being switched from bottom to top... Zhann

For a perception test do the circle in graduated red to blue on black and see which one comes forward and which sinks into the background...

OK first off you're not all going colorblind. On the first image (A) I am not sure that there is a number there. If there is it is very subtile. The image comes from a discussion on color blindness that was refered to on a thread on the poser forum. I found on that thread that there are many artists with some sort of color perception problems. Here is a link to a related site which might be useful and the article on colorblindness from which the test pattern comes from. The images (B) and (C) come from a short discussion on .bum maps I had with MartinC . Thanks for participating. There really is no reason that you should see either one as raised or lowered, but the common perception is that one appears raised and the other lowered, or both raised or both lowered. To visually communicate effectively it may not be important, but then you never know. again thank you, - TJ Zhann, As the circle appears to be perfectly round, I can't trick my eye into believing that either color procedes the other. if I were to base it on color I would say the red would be closer, but my eye does not believe that.

On black red tends to come forward and blue tends to recede, and yes, the circle is round. However, because color blindness deals with red and green, there would be a red or green number there, which colorblind people would see as gray, ordinary color sighted would see the numbers. I still say there's no number(s) in A...:p Zhann

When hill shading is applied to maps the general practice is to have light coming from top left, i.e. NW (which is a direction the sun doesn't usually shine from unless you're in RSA). The assumption is that most people most easily visualise light as coming from that direction as if they have a reading lamp on the left side (for right-handed people). Thus B should appear sunk and C raised.

Zhann,
From the first time someone told me that the sun being larger at sunset was merely an illusion, I've questioned
what I see. The question of color is also one that I wonder about. Do I see the same colors as eveeryone else, do I see them in the same way? How do partially colorblind people see the world? From what I understand from the article in the link in my previous post, they see color(as opposed to grey) but not the color that will differenciate it from the background.
As to a number in (A) I agree. This was bothering me for weeks, I even did the photoshop thing to see if it was me or the color as did someone else I talked to. I finally decided to post it to see if anyone else saw the number. I am now quite relieved to find out that no one else sees a number either, but I now have a better appreciation for what people who are colorblind go through.

The raised lowered thing makes assumptions that may be cultural or otherwise learned. I don't think that it's an
important distinction except that it shows that we all see things differently. The same might be said for the red/blue circle. I have to think about that one some more.

Phantast,
Interesting. I hadn't thought that handedness(is that a word?) would have to do with perception, but it's a possibility. I'm left handed BTW. Some things I have to
turn around in my head in order to do them in a right handed manner. (I'm not making excuses for my poor typing.)

Thank you All for your help,

• TJ

ps this all has a point. I'm thinking of writing an editor for bryce in "C" code - in the future I might have to ask about colors some more as if I ever get to it I'd like it to be accesable to as many as possible.

That sounds great, I gave up on "C" long time ago, too much programming, not enough art...=> Zhann

Zhann, I've been taking a vacation from C for the last few months, and find that my meagar windows skills have rusted through -but I can still do alot of manipulation with graphics using dos - Converting it to windows is more of a problem for me than writing the code. - TJ

I use to do programming for National Institute of Standards and Technology (government job) that was enough for me, although my favorite programming language is assembler...go figure...:}

Zhann, I like assembler. I've thied to understand machine language at various times too, but afte a while I figured that was just asking for trouble and stopped before I wiped my hard drive. The day's about to start so I better go. - TJ

It was my understanding that there's a bunch of different versions of color-blindness, some people can't see a difference between blue and green, and others really do see all gray. As far as color goes, I really do think everyone interprets it differently. I'm addicted to watching decorating shows, and I've noticed that no matter what color paint is used, everyone refers to it by a different name, ie an orangish color can be everything from rust to red depending on who looks at it. Of course, interpreting color doesn't help when everyone can adjust the settings on their monitor (or tv screen). Lin

Okay, here is my little color-blind speech I have given to people. This came about because in High School because I had somewhat of an interest in becoming a Police Officer. Found out that if you are even the slightest bit of color blind, forget it. I am, so I never became a cop. (I am slightly red-green colorblind) After being an art major for so many years I finally realized something. Here is an example; Take the color navy blue. Now take two people, one normal vision, and another being me. When the two people look at navy blue yes, they see different shades of blue but, they both will always call it "navy blue". The name is always the constant. So, normal visioned people are amazed when I can "recognize" way more colors than the they can. Like I said I've been an art major for years and I can say "oh, that's Hooker Green, or Canary Yellow". It's because I have the name in common, and a history of dealing with color and their names. (paint tubes) But, I will admit there are time when my color blindness cannot be helped and it is hard to tell specific colors. Mostly, at night under street lights. (Testing myself on car colors) So, while it is possible to help color blindness, I won't be able to find a true "workaround", lol. AgentSmith

What we see is not an image like a camera, what we see is a datafusion of myriad brain centres, each speciallized in some particular part of seeing has gestalted for our conciouswness according to a learned set of rules from infancy. Some parts see contrast, others motion, edges, texture, parallax, focus, etc. Other parts take these and begin to composite some of them, such as colour and contrast (how we can tell a certain shade of a colour under various lighting sources is partially infered from surrounding context and contrast as an example) an example of the rules based interpretation is If i reach outside the edge detected, I will not encounter the object. Sight is a really Non simple thing and to answer an earlier comment/question - No you do not see the same colour as everyone else. Vision is unique to each individual so your colour (as gestalted from a certain stimulus driven datafusion uniquely hardwired into your brain) is interpreted by rules you evolved as a baby/child from physical experimentation and societal consensus training cannot be the same but will appear so at the macro and societal level. Help, I need a pub!

Actually, what we see is the light (colors) not absorbed by the object we're viewing...:)

That's a piece of it. I used to have a massive collection of Scientific American and Discover magazines with articles on the process of vision. It is a truly messy and individual thing once you get past the physics outside and into the neurological inside. BTW, got girlfriend, lost storage room, something had to go and I'm NOT that geeky... (grin)!

Incarnadine, I read the science news on bbc and/or cnn and the nasa website nearly everyday, so you are not alone in your relative geekiness. :) Speaking of science and eyes, someone's worked out a way to put a chip on the retina and stimulate enough rods and cones to give some people the ability to see light and dark. Soon we will all be cyborgs. Of course, after the physical process of getting the image into the brain, then the mind must interpret it. Do certain shades of green remind you of a summer lake or your grandmother's living room? Does red make you hungry or blue make you sad? How do you choose the right color to make the right mood. What do the armchair psychologists here say?

What I was implying by the geeky ref was the possible choice result, girlfriend? or magazines? (grin) BTW I still have the girlfriend so I can't claim to be an uber-geek.

I do still have my pocket protector though. (grin) and - I still know how to use my sliderule!

You have out-geeked me! I never learned to use a sliderule. Although I recently astonished a friend of mine with how many computer acronyms I know (she doesn't surf much). I can see choosing a girlfriend over magazines. Of course, I nearly killed a former boyfriend when he suggested I get rid of some of my videotapes. Such blasphemy. He had many other bad qualities so I was much happier keeping the tapes and getting rid of him. Now I need to upgrade to DVD... so many toys, so little money.

In the process of changing over 500 vhs tapes to DVDs, hadn't realized I had so many videos, or the cost of DVDs, small baby steps, replace one at a time (unless there's a sale!) :} Zhann

Heeh!,, the nuber i cant c cos im still colour-blind abd c looks for me as raised. Apache2k