On Seeing Reddish Green and Yellowish Blue

Four color names—red, yellow, green, and blue—can be used singly or combined in pairs to describe all other colors. Orange, for example, can be described as a reddish yellow, cyan as a bluish green, and purple as a reddish blue. Some dyadic color names (such as reddish green and bluish yellow) describe colors that are not normally realizable. By stabilizing the retinal image of the boundary between a pair of red and green stripes (or a pair of yellow and blue stripes) but not their outer edges, however, the entire region can be perceived simultaneously as both red and green (or yellow and blue).