Blue black or white gold dress. What color is the dress? scientific explanation
Incredible Facts
What color is this dress? This question caused a fierce debate on the Internet, where users were divided into those who believe that it is white- golden dress and those who see the blue and black dress.
The photo of the dress was first posted on Tumblr by Scottish user Caitlin McNeill after she noticed that her friends were seeing different colors in the photo.
The picture quickly became an online sensation due to controversy surrounding the dress's true color. A label #TheDress (dress) began to quickly gain popularity around the world.
The girl herself said that she did not expect such a reaction to the dress that she wore to a friend's wedding.
Optical illusion
In fact, there is a scientific explanation for why some people see a blue-black dress, while others see a golden-white one.
The picture itself is optical illusion.
Objects reflect light at certain wavelengths or colors, and the human brain determines the color of the object by taking the reflected color. Such perception may be distorted by the colors of nearby objects.
This is similar to Adelson's shadow illusion. In the image, cell A is the same color as cell B, but the environment makes them look different.
In this photo, the surrounding colors are so chaotic that the brain cannot figure out what color the dress is.
Is the dress blue or white?
Digital analysis of the photo of the dress showed that one of the spots on the black lace is orange in the photo.
The original photo is in the middle. On the left, brightness and contrast have been adjusted so that the dress looks more white and gold. On the right, brightness and contrast have been adjusted to make the dress look blue and black.
Thus, people who perceive the surrounding area of the dress as dark will see Blue colour like white and black like gold. It depends on how the brain perceives and processes colors.
In fact, this dress is blue with black lace.
A photo of a dress that a girl from Scotland posted on the Internet divided the whole world into two camps - some see it dress in blue and black, other - in white and gold. Who is right and who is deceived by his sight?
The controversy over the color of the dress erupted after Scottish resident Caitlin McNeil posted a picture of the dress on her blog and asked the question to Internet users: “Help me, is this dress white and gold or blue and black? Me and my friends can't agree and we're going crazy." Within a couple of hours, the photo of the dress was scattered all over the Internet, and the world was divided into two camps: some began to claim that the dress was blue and black, others were sure that it was white and gold.
What color do you think the dress is in the photo?
It should be noted that there are much more people who see the white-gold color (according to numerous surveys on the Internet). In fact, the dress is blue and black - this was confirmed by its owner Caitlin. However, this fact did not close the debate about color.
Why do some people see the dress as blue and others as white?
When asked why someone sees blue-black, and someone sees white-golden colors in the photo of the dress, scientists tried to answer. The human retina consists of two types of photoreceptors - cones and rods. The rods are more sensitive to light and are responsible for perceiving the shape rather than the color of objects. Cones, on the contrary, are responsible for the perception of color, and not for the degree of illumination of the object. In other words, in the dark we perceive the world with rods rather than cones.
Yes, susceptibility colors depends on what is more in the human retina - cones or rods, as well as on how the object is illuminated. “Our visual system is used to rejecting information about the light source and scooping information about the actual reflected light. I have been studying individual color vision for 30 years, and in this case I see the most differences in individual perceptions of all that I have seen, ”says Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist from Washington.
And what color do you see the dress - black and blue or white and gold? We are waiting for your comments and do not forget to press the buttons and
website- At the end of last week, a photo appeared on the Internet that divided the world into two camps. As you may have guessed, we are talking about a magical dress. In the eyes of some people, it is black and blue, in others it is white and gold. The editors have collected facts about which scientists have told.
On February 25, a girl named Swiked posted a photo of the dress on Tumblr and asked her friends a simple question about what color it was. After a few hours, millions of people were divided into two camps: some claimed that the outfit was blue and black, while others claimed that it was white and gold. But even after the author of the photo confirmed that it was indeed blue with black stripes, the debate on the network did not stop and continues to this day. Even the scientists got into the fight. They finally decided to explain what color the dress really is. So University of Washington neuroscientist Jane Nitz says that human eyes and the brain evolved to distinguish colors in a world illuminated by the sun. Light enters the eye through the lens different lengths report on different colors. Light hits the retina at the back of the eye, where pigments activate neural connections in the visual cortex, the part of the brain that translates signals into images. This theory is put forward by a popular American site.
“The brain figures out what color light is reflected from the object that the eyes see, and separates this color from the color that it considers “real”. "So people don't take blue into account, and then they see white and gold," added another Wellesley College neuroscientist, Bevil Conway.
For example, even what a person looks at before looking at a dress can have a direct impact on what colors they see. Also important is the level of lighting in the room in which the person is located.
Lighting is very important for color recognition, which is a combination of how much light hits an object and how much light is reflected off it. In the case of a dress, some people perceive the image as blue-black, because it seems to their eye that the lighting is strong enough and there is little reflected light, others perceive more reflected color, so they see the dress as white-gold.
After this topic became so popular on the Internet, Caitlin McNeil, who posted a photo, said that in fact the dress is blue and black.
“In addition to the poor quality of the image, the dispute is also due to the way we perceive light. Our brain processes different wavelengths of light, each corresponding to a different color. As Bevil Conway, a color and vision scientist, explained to Wired, daylight affects and changes the way we perceive the colors of objects. Therefore, when looking at a dress, our brain corrects for daylight and "cuts off" one of the undertones - bluish or yellowish. Due to the individuality of perception, it seems to some that the dress is white and gold, and to others that it is blue and black. In addition, a similar effect can also be explained by an optical illusion: how we perceive the color of an object is affected by the background on which it is located and the lighting. The picture may have been taken in bluish light, which may appear to many to be white."
The most detailed answer was given by Washington professor Jay Neitz: “The dress appears blue-black or white-gold depending on whether your eye has more rods or cones and the lighting conditions in the room. (This is made possible by the different colors that mix around you.) Different people have different "rod" and "cone" remnants - those with color blindness are the first to suffer.
But the "rods" are also very sensitive to light. The rods detect color using a pigment called rhodopsin, which is very sensitive to low light but flares out and is destroyed at higher light levels. And it should take about 45 minutes to readjust (how your eyes take time to adjust to the night, in other words). In principle, if you look at a dress in bright light and see one color, then if you go into a dark room for half an hour and return, the dress will quite possibly change color.
Also, the different color of the dress in different people is associated with individual differences in color perception. If you've ever tried photography, you've probably come across white balance - the camera trying to equalize it in inappropriate lighting conditions. Your brain does its own white balancing, which automatically means that you are either ignoring the blue tint and seeing a white/gold image, or ignoring the yellow tint, seeing a blue/black photo.
Ophthalmologists say that a different perception of the color of a dress does not mean that Do you have eye or mental problems?. Each person has individual features of vision. The brain processes the light waves that hit the retina in a unique way, so some people see some colors and some others.
There is a scientific explanation for why people see different colors in the same picture. This is an optical illusion. Objects reflect light at different wavelengths or colors and human brain determines the color by reflected light. Objects around can also reflect color and affect perception. In this photo, there are many other colors around and they mix, and the brain cannot immediately determine the color of the dress. So, people who perceive the surrounding light as dark see white instead of blue. It depends on the process of perception by the brain. University of Washington professor Jay Neitz says he has been studying color differences for 30 years and this case is one of the most obvious differences he has ever seen. By the way, the dress seemed white to him.
On February 27, almost the whole world went crazy because of an ordinary, at first glance, dress - show business stars, fashion gurus, and ordinary users of social networks argued about the color of the dress shown in the photo. The media promised to reveal the secret of the dress and explain why some saw a blue and black dress, while others saw a white and gold one, writes Gazeta.Ru.
It all started with the user social network. The girl published a still not sensational photo of the dress and asked her friends to help her with determining its color. “Guys, please help. We're already crazy with friends and family, we can't tell the color of this dress." she wrote. After this publication, not only she went crazy, but the whole progressive world.
What color is the dress really?
We also joined the survey launched by the BuzzFeed portal, in which their opinions, like the opinions of the whole world, were divided into two camps. Some saw a blue and black dress in the photograph (there were a minority of such people, as according to all other statistics), others clearly saw a white and gold dress.
The photographer said that the dress is blue and black as seen by a minority of voters. original photo dress, on which his real color was clearly visible, was published a little later, when the whole world managed to break the brain in search of the correct answer and debate with relatives.
Why does everyone see the dress differently?
It turns out that the whole dispute is based on the biological differences of people - different people saw contradictory colors in the photo, because the light fell differently on their eye photoreceptors. The human retina consists of two types of photoreceptors - cones and rods- the perception of color depends on which of them had the fall of light. If there are more rods or cones on the retina of one person than on the retina of another, then they will see the same object in a different interpretation.
Simply put, some have more rods on their retinas, while others have more cones - this is what made the dress colorful in the eyes of two such people. The brain automatically interprets colors, this process is invisible to humans. If you go into a dark room and stay in it for 30-40 minutes, then upon returning, the color of the dress will change for him, regardless of the color interpretation in which he initially saw it. This will happen because some photoreceptors will give a "temporary failure", later they will be restored.
Experts report that such color illusions happen to a person all the time, but he does not notice them. You can check the true color of an object in a photograph using an image editor program, for example, using Photoshop, turning on / off controversial shades. In some people, under certain lighting conditions, the eyes ignore blue shades some are yellow. If a person saw a black and blue dress in the photo, then his eyes ignore yellow shades, and if the white and gold dress - blue.
Checking the real color of the dress in Photoshop (video):
Another glitch that our brain can throw out was revealed by a photo of a dress that the girl posted on the Internet. She had an argument with her friends, and opinions were divided equally: half claims that the dress is white and gold, the second half that it is black and blue.
Illusion of the day!
Thousands of users were also confused. Even Kim Kardashian tweeted that she thought the dress was white, while her husband Kanye West clearly replied that it was blue and black.
I also agreed with Kim on the first one. After all, if the photo is lightened in Photoshop, the answer seems obvious.
But another answer seems obvious, if the photo is slightly darkened.
So which side is the truth?
So, don't believe your eyes if you think the dress is white and gold:
Moreover, there is no white color on the official website.
Why is this happening? Our visual system, as a result of evolution, has learned to filter out the hue of incident light in order to see natural color subject. But in some people, the brain filters out blue hues, and in others, yellow hues, which leads to a difference in perception.
In addition, if you immediately saw the dress as white and gold, and now you really distinguish between blue and black, then science has an answer to this - after all, we are not machines, and consciousness can change the sensation from the seen picture in accordance with the context.
