[visionlist] [*Email Suspect*] is this visual illusion already existing?

[Kenneth KNOBLAUCH]

Telln us some more about the spectral characteristics of the stimuli. I suspect that you are seeing the differential filtering by macular pigment in fovea and parafovea, like Maxwell’s spot but sampled discretely.  I am a protanope and see it.

thanks   very cool


ken
Kenneth Knoblauch
Inserm U1208
Stem-cell and Brain Research Institute
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France
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On 14 Sep 2026, at 15:59, PERRINET Laurent <laurent.perrinet at univ-amu.fr> wrote:

 Dear community,

As part of a collaboration with artist Etienne Rey from Marseille<https://spam.inserm.fr/fmlurlsvc/?fewReq=:B:JVo+NTc0PiJyOTYqNCJtYDk0NT40NSJ3bWNqZXBxdmE5NmY2MmE8PGY1ZzNiMmU1NzcwZWAwNzxlZjM3YmcxPGdnMz08PGcxZyJwOTUzPD03PTA9MzIidW1gOTI8QUE9ZW1WNDQ0MDY2KTI8QUE9ZW1QNDQ0MDY2InZndHA5Imc5MD0ibGBoOTQ=&url=https%3a%2f%2fondesparalleles.org >, and fiddling with different ways to develop a controlled visual stimulus designed to show the perceptual asymmetry between foveal and peripheral vision, we ended up with an image which may be of interest for the vision community.

For a desktop computer (you may have to zoom and avoid luminous environments):

<2026-09-14-pale-blue-dots_big.jpg>

If on a phone (just cropping the above):

<GraphiqueCollé-1.png>


Basically, whenever your eye catches a shape in the image, you see it with a perceived luminance different from the background (this may take one second or two), and the background is perceived mostly uniformly. Changing the position of your fixation should   ignite   another shape. Should work for most eyes, at least it did in the crowd around me (except a fellow friend with poor color vision, sorry mate). As it moves the spatial zone of clarity under the gaze as a flashlight would do as you search your keys that dropped in the lawn at night, we called it the *flashlight illusion*, but maybe it already exists with a different name?

Here is my question to the community: As for many illusions, the chances are high that I reinvented the wheel (and warm water at the same time) and that it already exists. I searched extensively on the   visual illusion bible   (aka Michael Bach’s website), and looked to various parts of the interweb but nothing close and I hope someone would have a clue.

Cheers,
Laurent

PS: I try to document the development of the illusion in this Jupyter / Python notebook<https://spam.inserm.fr/fmlurlsvc/?fewReq=:B:JVo+NTc0PiJyOTYqNCJtYDk0NT40NSJ3bWNqZXBxdmE5PDY2Z2Y1PTYyNDNnMjBmZzwxPGY2ZTE9NWc9YTNhMjwwNzJlPDMyPCJwOTUzPD03PTA9MzIidW1gOTI8QUE9ZW1WNDQ0MDY2KTI8QUE9ZW1QNDQ0MDY2InZndHA5Imc5MTYibGBoOTQ=&url=https%3a%2f%2flaurentperrinet.github.io%2fsciblog%2fposts%2f2026-07-31-pale-blue-dots.html > - would be glad if you perceive the illusion better for other parameters (I looked at it certainly too much)
PS2: as a bonus, the shapes are either pentagons, hexagons or octagons - again you can spot that only under your point of fixation



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