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Mach Bands

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Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology

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Definition

In this brightness illusion the physical contrast on the edge between the adjacent shades of gray is exaggerated (Fig. 1). Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach (1838–1916) introduced this, now famous, optical illusion in 1865.

Mach Bands, Fig. 1
figure 131 figure 131

The achromatic contrast effect is noticeable at the edges where the two similar gray rectangles meet each other. (a) The darker of the two regions (i.e., gray squares) seems to have another even darker band near the border, while an extra light band appears on the lighter region. (b) The gray rectangles therefore do not appear to be of uniform color. This illusion is one of the clearest demonstrations of the difference between physical stimulation and the perception. The two graphs represent actual luminance profile and (below) perceived lightness profile on the position of an edge. The underlying mechanism serves an important function of enhancing edge detection

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Novi Sad, NoviSad, Serbia

    Sunčica Zdravković

  2. Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Sunčica Zdravković

Authors
  1. Sunčica Zdravković
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Correspondence to Sunčica Zdravković .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Modern, Optical Instrumentation, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Ming Ronnier Luo

  2. School of Design, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Ming Ronnier Luo

  3. Graduate Institute of Colour and Illumination, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China

    Ming Ronnier Luo

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Zdravković, S. (2016). Mach Bands. In: Luo, M.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8071-7_348

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