Magic! I saw another color out of thin air

Complementary colors are also called complementary colors or residual colors. When two colors are mixed to form a neutral color, the two colors are called complementary colors. Neutral colors are mostly black and gray. A specific color has only one "fixed CP". Yellow and blue, cyan and red are all complementary colors.

Is there really only one complementary color? There is a method that can help you quickly verify it.

Try to stare at a piece of red cloth for a long time, and when visual fatigue forms, quickly move your eyes to the white background. You will feel a green image appearing on the white wall. This visual afterimage shows that visual balance requires complementary colors as an adjustment. Green, as the only complementary color of red, is naturally the best choice.

Image source: Internet

When you don't know the complementary color of a color, this method can help you get it quickly. Isn't it amazing?

How do eyes clearly capture colors? How does the phenomenon of complementary colors occur? What special color vision phenomena will be caused by complementary colors? There is a lot of science behind these magical phenomena...

Light and Color

Our eyes are special organs with an optical system. They can sense light because the inner layer of the retina contains ganglion cells connected to the optic nerve, which are responsible for transmitting light information to the brain. The pupil adapts to light changes by contracting and dilating. When light stimulates the eyes, the physiological structure of the eyes will affect people's perception of color, that is, the color we see is not necessarily the real color of light.

When we suddenly go from a dimly lit room to a sunny outdoor, we feel it is very dazzling and need a few seconds to adapt to observe objects normally. If we go from a bright place to a dark place, we will suddenly not be able to see clearly. After a sufficient period of adaptation, our eyes can see things clearly. This shows that the eyes have the function of automatically adjusting to light, and this adjustment and adaptation ability comes from the two color-sensitive cells on the retina, the cone cells and rod cells.

Cone cells occupy the "center" of the retina and are the most sensitive part of vision. In bright light conditions, cone cells can distinguish even the slightest color changes. Their visual advantage of being able to adapt to bright conditions is called "bright vision". Rod cells are just the opposite. They only work in dim light conditions and can only distinguish light and dark, not color. Because they can adapt to vision in dim light conditions, they are called "scotopic vision".

Image source: pexels

There are three types of color-sensitive cone cells on our retina, which can produce various color sensations in the visual center of the cerebral cortex. It is this visual structure that causes some special color vision phenomena, which is what we call "visual complementary colors."

Special color vision phenomenon

Human vision requires a physiological balance for colors. No matter what color is reflected in our eyes, our vision will require its relative complementary color.

When we suddenly go from a daylight environment to an incandescent light environment, we will feel that objects in the new environment are yellow. Of course, this feeling is short-lived, and the eyes will soon return to the feeling in the daylight. The stimulation of different colors to the eyes will cause changes in vision. This change is the adaptation of vision to different colors of light. When the eyes adapt to a certain color of light, the eyes' perception of the latter color is almost the complementary color of the original color.

Image source: pexels

Place a colored shape on a gray or white background. If someone takes the shape away after looking at it for a long time, you will find that a shape with the complementary color of the original color will appear on the background.

If you look at a white figure with a gray background, the complementary color figure that appears is the dark afterimage of the figure. When the figure changes to black, a bright afterimage will appear in your eyes. This is also the magical visual experience brought by the principle of complementary colors!

When do we encounter visual complementary colors in daily life?

In medical TV dramas, we always see doctors wearing green surgical gowns during surgery, not the common white coats.

The reason for this is that during the operation, the doctor's field of vision is always filled with bright red bloodstains, and long-term high tension causes visual fatigue. When the doctor shifts his gaze, if the people around him are all wearing white coats, under the principle of visual complementary colors, spots of "green bloodstains" will appear in the doctor's eyes. This illusion is very dangerous and will affect the doctor's judgment.

The way hospitals eliminate the green illusion is mainly to use green surgical gowns, which can not only reduce the fatigue of doctors' optic nerves, but also provide patients with a safer surgical environment.

Image source: pexels

The famous Impressionist painter Van Gogh was particularly good at using the principle of visual complementary colors to create works, such as the following painting "Cafe Under the Stars". Van Gogh used orange and blue to enhance each other to strengthen the visual impact of the picture.

The windows are in saturated orange and the ground is in bright orange. The contrast between warm and cool colors increases the visual depth, with warm colors in the front and cool colors in the back, which is more visually impactful.

The principle of visual complementary colors is widely used in the field of art. Although vision can be deceptive, the principle of complementary colors is constantly adding more imagination to colors. If you use colors rationally, maybe you can become a Leonardo da Vinci (in your next life)!

END

Review expert: Luo Huiqian, associate researcher at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Tadpole Musical Notation original article, please indicate the source when reprinting

Editor/Heart and Paper