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I can't remember a time before when an optical illusion didn't work for me, but this 100% doesn't work for me.

Here I see 9 distinctly purple dots. On a phone screen. The depth of field about a half arms length. Despite what the article says, I see all dots — the one I'm focused upon — as well as all those in peripheral vision as purple. The illusion does not apply to my visual cortex.

Back to the drawing board.

I think I may have found the reason in the Maxwell's Spot PDF the article links to. It says:

"The reason why this illusion [Maxwell's Spot] does not tend to be clearly visible with LCDs may be because the peak wavelength of blue in LCDs is on the shorter wavelength side than 460nm."

I don't know what technology my monitor is using, but it's possible it's LCD. Or maybe OLEDs have a similar color shift.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com