Our Eyes Are Magical. With A Little Effort We Can See The Color In Black And White Photos

by N/A, 9 years ago | 2 min read

Cone cells are two types of photoreceptors in the retinas of our eyes, all of which are responsible for different types of color reception. When overexposed to a particular type, the retinas can become tired and need to "recharge," thus you won't receive that type of color reception. This phenomenon allows your eyes to make some incredible adjustments, which will be displayed in the video below.

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So first, the participant is asked to look at this black and white photo of Dunstanburgh Castle.

The idea is to adjust the sensitivity to different light receptors in the eyes. So, staring at the blue dot in the middle of the photo helps the eyes focus in on this.

So, she keeps staring and staring and staring. Then, stares a little bit longer–focused right on the blue dot in the middle of the screen.

At this moment the photo is changed back to the black and white image, but as you can see by her reaction, she is no longer seeing it as black and white.

Without seeing it in real time you will not have sees the change to color, but this is the screen she was looking at (still focused on the blue dot), however,? she was seeing it in color.

We'll let this phenomenon play out before your very eyes by showing you the quick video right here:

Truly, remarkable: right?! It's incredible the things we can learn about the capabilities of the human body. The fact that our eyes can make up the difference with just a simple adjustment is hard to even fathom.

We're glad it can though, because seeing this in color is (clearly) much more vibrant than in black and white.