Afterimage
Perhaps an extremely practical way to study color perception is to analyze the phenomenon of afterimages.
An
afterimage is a non-specific term that refers to an image continuing to appear in one's vision after the exposure to the original image has ceased. An afterimage may be a normal phenomenon (physiological afterimage) or may be pathological (
palinopsia). Illusory palinopsia may be a pathological exaggeration of physiological afterimages. A common physiological afterimage is the dim area that seems to float before one's
eyes after briefly looking into a light source, such as a camera flash (source of information: Wikipedia).
When we stare at a bright spot of the color red for a while, and then stare away at a white wall, we would see an afterimage (a negative reversed image) of the opposite of red on the color wheel --- green.
Because the human eye has photoreceptors and rods that balance the spectrum gradients of white light (which itself separates into the multiple colors of the rainbow), it is able to 'cast' negative afterimages from the stored sensitized memories of perceived colors of light from the real world.
A rainbow is really intriguing since it is sort of a physics-generated 'afterimage' of white light being separated by the prismatic effects of a post-rainstorm water-vapor filled atmosphere.
It is the phenomenon of color afterimage which perhaps reveals the memory euphoria associated with relevant color-paranoia themed society art totems such as the color-haunted Hollywood (USA) movie "Purple Rain" (1984).
Afterimage - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
