What color is the dress, or How our brain perceives colors

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Lifehacker's editors figured out why a seemingly simple question like “What color is the dress?” Divided the Internet in half, and picked up a few more optical illusions that are no less striking.

The essence of such an unusual phenomenon lies in the different perception of the reflected light by our brain.

We always have a choice of how much light hits the retina.

The illumination of an object depends on two factors: how much light hits the surface and how much of it is reflected. In the case of the dress, some users perceived blue and black as colors with sufficient lighting, but less reflectivity. The second option is white and gold that are less illuminated, but have a higher degree of reflection.

That said, our perception of colors largely depends on the so-called top-down image processing. It starts in the brain and continues its movement, filtering information through personal experience, expectations, certain eye movements, or even what we saw a few minutes before. For example, a certain perception of color can be affected by the fact that you've seen a dress (or fabric) with the same texture and shape before.

Scientific research in most cases does not pay attention to such individual differences in perception. This phenomenon in general is common, because the light that we interpret for ourselves on a daily basis is also a certain shade of blue.

Be that as it may, this disagreement has acquired simply colossal proportions. Everyone, including the stars, managed to discuss the ill-fated dress. According to statistics, about 75% saw gold and white, and the remaining 25% saw black and blue.

I don’t understand this odd dress debate and I feel like it’s a trick somehow. I'm confused and scared. PS it's OBVIOUSLY BLUE AND BLACK

The debate on this topic was so zealous that, according to the publication Mashable, 16 couples had time to quarrel over disagreements.

* breaks up with boyfriend bc he sees white and gold *

Boyfriend and I just spent five minutes yelling BLUE AND BLACK NO WHITE AND GOLD at each other I’ve never been so upset - amelia (@ameeliargh) February 27, 2015

That dress is gold and white but boyfriend says blue and black. he said I’m colorblind and I said that he’s a LIAR. - rebeca (@ohrebeca) February 27, 2015

During its short existence, the image has already become a meme and received its own hashtag #TheDress, which topped the corresponding top in the United States.

This phenomenon is a kind of variation of Adelson's famous chessboard optical trick. In the picture below, cells "A" and "B" are the same color.

In addition, there are still many different variations on this theme, some of which the Lifehacker's editors have collected below.

And here a light green circle moves in a circle

Lattice illusion. When you move your gaze over the image, the white dots "turn" to black

There are only two colors in this picture: green and pink. Not four different shades as it might seem

There are only two colors here too

We look at the point - the spots disappear

There is no blue color here. Spiral shade of green

And rhombuses of the same brightness

Stripes disappear when looking at a point

Green is one shade here

Like surfaces "A" and "B"

The dogs are identical

We look at the point, and the gray stripe turns blue

What colors do you see on the dress? Write about it in the comments.