Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A visual image that persists after the visual stimulus causing it has ceased to act.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
image which persists or remains innegative after the originalstimulation has ended.
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The afterimage is a simple consequence of adaptation of the rods and cones of the retina.
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I watched her for a time, with that spicy scent lingering in my mind, and a kind of afterimage, too, of her coppery hair and the way her mouth looked when she smiled.
Hoodwink Pronzini, Bill 1981
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"I use a continuous tone on my violin to establish a new relationship to listening, and he uses combinations of colored lights to address things that happen in the viewer's eye, such as afterimage and persistence of vision.
Baltimore City Paper 2008
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I am just an empty vessel, an afterimage of what I once was or was I once?
Phantom Marc Lowe 2011
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The transition from rod to cone vision gradually unfolds; floods of afterimage color wash over the vision and gradually decrease like waves.
John Seed: Inside Eric Orr's Zero Mass at MCASD La Jolla John Seed 2011
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The transition from rod to cone vision gradually unfolds; floods of afterimage color wash over the vision and gradually decrease like waves.
John Seed: Inside Eric Orr's Zero Mass at MCASD La Jolla John Seed 2011
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The second is the afterimage – Henry on the floor of their home, surrounded by their friends, bleeding.
Writer Unboxed » Blog Archive » How to make readers cry, in six steps 2009
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The transition from rod to cone vision gradually unfolds; floods of afterimage color wash over the vision and gradually decrease like waves.
John Seed: Inside Eric Orr's Zero Mass at MCASD La Jolla John Seed 2011
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The transition from rod to cone vision gradually unfolds; floods of afterimage color wash over the vision and gradually decrease like waves.
John Seed: Inside Eric Orr's Zero Mass at MCASD La Jolla John Seed 2011
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When the brilliant afterimage, caused by that brief glance into the sun's dazzling face, had vanished from before his eyes, he returned once more to his instruments.
"Cosmic Fever" by Amelia Reynolds Long, part 2 Johnny Pez 2010
whichbe commented on the word afterimage
An optical phenomenon in which the eye's nerves continue to convey an image after an initial image has departed. Typically, the afterimage appears as a likeness of the initial image, except that each of its colors is the complement to those in the initial image.
How many black dots can you find? The black dots you see, and see disappear, are afterimages. This figure is known as a Hermann grid.
Another: Stare at the + in the middle of the blue figure below for 15-30 seconds. Then move your gaze to the + in the center of the white square on the right.
(From ArtLex)
June 5, 2008