Visual Illusions: Their Causes, Characteristics and Applications — John Shaqi
Visual Illusions: Their Causes, Characteristics and ApplicationsLuckiesh, Matthew
Science
Visual Illusions: Their Causes, Characteristics and Applications
Luckiesh, Matthew
Optical illusions
White light consists of rays of light of various colors and these are
separated by means of a prism because the refractive-index of the prism
differs for lights of different color or wave-length. This causes the blue
rays, for example, to be bent more than the red rays when traversing a
prism. It is in this manner that the spectrum of light may be obtained. A
lens may be considered to be a prism of revolution and it thus becomes
evident that the blue rays will be brought to a focus at a lesser
distance than the red rays; that is, the former are bent more from their
original path than the latter. This defect of lenses is known as chromatic
aberration and is quite obvious in the eye. It may be demonstrated by any
simple lens, for the image of the sun, for example, will appear to have a
colored fringe. A purple filter which transmits only the violet and red
rays is useful for this demonstration. By looking at a lamp-filament or
candle-flame some distance away the object will appear to have a violet
halo, but the color of the fringe will vary with accommodation. On looking
through a pin-hole at the edge of an object silhouetted against the bright
sky the edge will appear red if the light from the pin-hole enters the
pupil near its periphery. This optical defect of the eye makes objects
appear more sharply defined when viewed in monochromatic light. In fact,
this is quite obvious when using yellow glasses. The defect is also
demonstrated by viewing a line-spectrum focused on a ground glass. The
blue and red lines cannot be seen distinctly at the same distance. The
blue lines can be focused at a much less distance than the red lines.
Chromatic aberration can account for such an illusion as the familiar
"advancing" and "retiring" colors and doubtless it plays a part in many
illusions.
The structure of the retina plays a very important part in vision and
accounts for various illusions and many interesting visual phenomena. The
optic nerve spreads out to form the retina which constitutes the inner
portion of the spherical shell of the eye with the exception of the front
part. Referring again to Fig. 1, the outer coating of the shell is called
the sclerotic. This consists of dense fibrous tissue known as the "white
of the eye." Inside this coating is a layer of black pigment cells termed
the choroid. Next is the bacillary layer which lines about five-sixths of
the interior surface of the eye. This is formed by closely packed "rods"
and "cones," which play a dominant role in the visual process. A
light-sensitive liquid (visual purple) and cellular and fibrous layers
complete the retinal structure.
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