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Updated: Jun 29, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
Published on: April 24, 2017
On seeing reddish green and yellowish blue
Abstract:
Four color names-red, yellow, green, and blue-can be used singly or combined in pairs to describe all other colors. Orange, for example, can be described as a reddish yellow, cyan as a bluish green, and purple as a reddish blue. Some dyadic color names (such as reddish green and bluish yellow) describe colors that are not normally realizable. By stabilizing the retinal image of the boundary between a pair of red and green stripes (or a pair of yellow and blue stripes) but not their outer edges, however, the entire region can be perceived simultaneously as both red and green (or yellow and blue).
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