Mach bands is an optical illusion named after the physicist Ernst Mach. It exaggerates the contrast between edges of the slightly differing shades of gray, as soon as they get in contact with each other, thus enhancing edge-detection by the human visual system.
Explanation[]
The Mach bands effect is due to the spatial high-boost filtering performed by the human visual system on the luminance channel of the image captured by the retina. This filtering is largely performed in the retina itself, by lateral inhibition among its neurons.
The effect is independent of the orientation of the boundary.
The Mach bands illusion makes a) the darker areas falsely appear even darker in the illusionary "bands" stretching along boundaries with the slightly lighter areas, and b) the lighter areas falsely appear even lighter along the same boundaries.
The illusion is independent of orientation.