Vision – Accessible Science Graphics Collection

Animated illustration of human colour and lightness perception. Equally coloured objects might misleadingly appear to have different hue or lightness even though they do not and indeed represent the exact same values (an effect also known as “checker shadow illusion”). An effect that becomes problematic for scientific figures, as for example with heatmap plots.

Creator: Stefan Scherrer
This version: 03.09.2021
License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Specific citation: This video by Stefan Scherrer from Crameri et al. (2020) is available via the open-access s-Ink repository.
Related reference: Crameri, F., G.E. Shephard, and P.J. Heron (2020), The misuse of colour in science communication, Nature Communications, 11, 5444. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19160-7

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Simplified schematic of human colour perception. The perception of a certain colour, or colour gradient, by the optical cortex depends not only on the optical properties of the object, but also on the optical properties of both light source and object background, and the eye’s light receptors (rod and cone cells for short, medium and long wavelengths).

Creator: Fabio Crameri
This version: 03.09.2021
License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Specific citation: This graphic by Fabio Crameri from Crameri et al. (2020) is available via the open-access s-ink.org repository.
Related reference: Crameri, F., G.E. Shephard, and P.J. Heron (2020), The misuse of colour in science communication, Nature Communications, 11, 5444. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19160-7

Vector format
Transparent background
Light & dark background versions
Colour-vision deficiency friendly

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Tag: Vision

Colour perception: Background colour

Colour perception