On the subject of perception, take a few seconds to see how our mind can play tricks on us:

www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

Continue reading only after you’ve gone to the link–otherwise you’ll spoil the fun for yourself. I sent this link to my coaching clients. One of them wrote back that she had already seen this phenomena and had asked a friend of hers in the neurosciences about the phenomena. Thanks to Jeff Diamond, wherever you are, for the following scientific explanation:

By fixating on the +, you keep the dots in the same part of your visual field, so light from the red dots hit the same batch of photoreceptors for an extended period. As a result, your red cone photoreceptors start to accommodate to the constant red input. So, when the red spot goes blank, there are fewer red cones ready to respond to the gray background (which contains an equal amount of all colors), so it looks green (the optimal color for the other major cone). Eventually, the red cones completely accommodate, so the red spots, um, appear to disappear, but when the red spot really does disappear, you see green, because the red spot disappearing actually reflects the addition of non-red hues to the spot (to make gray).

My left brain is loving how this all fits together so nicely. For my right brain, this is akin to revealing the man behind the green curtain as the Wizard of Oz. It’s interesting to find the logical explanation of what I’m experiencing. And I hope we never become so smart as to explain everything I experience in logical terms. I prefer a bit of mystery and magic in my life.