OPTICAL EFFECTS OF COLOR Certain uses and combinations of colors can "play trick" on our eyes,or, more accurately, on the way perceive colors registered by our eyes. For one thing, there is the phenomenon known as simultaneous contrast. If you place two complementary colors next to each other,both of them eill seem more brilliant:red seems redder, green greener,and so forth. Food merchandisers understand this well. Strawberries are nearly always packaged in green, the complement of red, and the meat counter in a grocery store often will have some touch of green. Similarly , the home decorator might create an instant "still life" by piling fresh oranges into a blue bowl on the table; the two colors spark against each other and dazzle the eye.
Another phenomenon associated with complementary colors is asterimage. If you stare fixedly at the color areas in the illustration (136) for half a minute, and then turn your eyes quickly to a white page or wall, you will see a faint afterimage of the color patches in their complementary colors.