What is the mystery of the color-changing dress. The Dress That Divided the Internet

Do you believe what you see? Especially for you - pictures that deceive the eyesight and the brain.

What color is this dress?

This dress (by the way, what color is it?) blew up the Internet and in a matter of hours divided the world into two camps. For those who have spent the last few days in a coma, here is a brief summary of what happened. The author of the photo posted it on Tumblr with the question "What color is this dress?". However, it was not possible to get a unanimous answer: some see in this photo a blue dress with black lace inserts, brightly lit with electric warm light, others claim that the dress is white, the inserts are golden, and the dress itself is in the shade.

The dress became a meme in no time and has already managed to bore everyone endlessly. However, in the end, this illusion is just a demonstration of one of the many ways to deceive imperfect human vision. We have collected 16 more optical illusions that will make you disbelieve your eyes.

Checkerboard Shadow Illusion: Cells A and B are actually the same color!

"Neon" color spread: neon lines make us think that the central area in the picture is painted over with light blue. In fact, the background is equally white everywhere.

Troxler Effect: If you stare at the red dot long enough without blinking, the green circle will disappear.

White's Illusion: The gray stripes under A and B are actually the same color!

Apparent movement: due to the contrast of colors and shapes, we think that the figures are moving, but the image is absolutely static.

Flickering grid: if you look at the picture, it will seem that black dots appear and disappear at the intersections. In reality, all dots are white.

Watercolor Illusion: The light color lines on the inside of the shape make it look like the orange is fading into white, but this is an illusion.

Tile illusion: The horizontal lines are straight and parallel to each other, but the human eye sees them as going at an angle.

Purple Fighter: A more impressive demonstration of the Troxler effect. If you keep looking at the black cross, the motionless purple circles disappear, only the moving green circle remains.

Spinning Ballerina: Is the girl spinning clockwise or counterclockwise? It depends on which foot your brain considers as a fulcrum.

Zellner Illusion: In this drawing, the long lines appear to be non-parallel because the short lines are at an angle to each other. However, in reality they are parallel.

Sander's Parallelogram: The diagonal on the left side of the picture appears to be much longer than the diagonal on the right, but they are actually the same length.

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 a social network user. 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 a white and gold dress - blue.

There is one unique dress in the world, the color of which has become the subject of a big dispute in the English-speaking segment of the Internet. As is often the case in the event of a dispute, users are divided into two camps: the first are firmly convinced that the color of the dress is blue and black, while others see a combination of white and gold.

It all started with the fact that on February 25, a Tumblr user under the pseudonym Swiked posted on her blog a photo of a dress with a seemingly simple question, what color is it: white and gold or blue and black. The girl claimed that the color of the dress became the subject of a dispute between her and her friends, which resulted in a quarrel.

The photo quickly spread around the network and gained immense popularity. In a matter of hours, the photo caused a wide discussion. She launched her own hashtag #TheDress, which quickly became the trending trend on the American Twitter segment. Almost immediately after the start of the discussion, quite witty photo-toads and jokes on this topic rained down.

Not only ordinary users, but also celebrities took part in the discussions. So, american star television and fashion model, Kim Kardashian told her followers on Twitter that she had an argument with her husband, the famous American rapper and producer Kanye West, about the color of the dress. American singer Taylor Swift said that she did not understand why all the fuss was made, since "it is obvious that the dress is blue and black." At the same time, one of the main characters of The X-Files, David Duchovny, saw green and blue colors. BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith noted that his daughter thinks the color of the dress is greenish blue, and they are already heading to the nearest city hospital department [this is, of course, a joke].

What color is that dress? I see white & gold. Kanye sees black & blue, who is color blind?

Even tech brands have tried to benefit from the discussion about the color of the dress:

Of course, in the lively discussion around the mysterious dress, they did not forget to mention the Illuminati.

However, there is a logical explanation for all this madness that this dress gave rise to.

The color perception of a person depends on the individual characteristics of his vision. The retina is responsible for the interpretation of colors in the organ of the visual system, the structure of which is extremely complex. The outermost layer is light-(color-)perceiving and consists of neuroepithelial cells - rods and cones that perceive light and colors. The cones are responsible for the perception of colors, and the rods are responsible for the perception of shades like gray, black and white. Cones "work" only when the right amount of light hits the object. So some can see the fabric white color, and for others, the color of the same fabric is blue due to insufficient lighting.

The retina of the human eye contains three types of cones that perceive light in the violet-blue, green-yellow and yellow-red parts of the spectrum. As for black, which many perceive as gold, there is such a thing as additive color mixing. By mixing the three primary colors (red, green and blue) in a certain ratio, most of the colors perceived by humans can be reproduced. In contrast to additive color mixing, there are subtractive synthesis schemes. As opposed to additive color mixing, there are subtractive synthesis schemes. As more and more colors are added, the final color will become progressively darker until it is completely black.

Users who believe that the color of the dress is blue-black have more efficiently functioning cones, which ultimately leads to subtractive mixing. Representatives of the second camp, who consider the dress to be white and gold, received cones that are less receptive to light, which causes additive mixing. If you increase the brightness of the smartphone or monitor screen, you can see how the dress changes color from white-gold to blue-black.

P.S. And what do you think, our dear readers, what color is the dress?

P.P.S. What color are squares A and B?

P.P.P.S. In which direction is the dancer spinning?

Most likely, everyone remembers the very dress that turned the entire Internet on its ears. People vigorously discussed and argued what color it is - white-gold or blue-black. Now the researchers decided to approach this question with scientific point vision.

What have scientists learned?

Research scientists have led to conclusions that indicate that the difference in human perception of color largely depends on how human brain generally perceives colors in daylight. It has long been known that the shapes and colors of an object can be viewed by two people in completely different ways. However, it was the dress that became one of the most dramatic and sensational examples. And now, with the study of the colors in this dress, it's clear that the well-known question of whether all people see colors in the same way, the answer is not necessarily yes.

Color Constancy

In one study, researchers asked nearly 1,500 people to look at a photo of a dress they had never seen before and say what color it was. 57 percent of those polled said it was blue and black, 30 percent said it was white and gold, 11 percent described it as blue and brown, and 2 percent chose another answer. Some subjects reported that they saw very different colors when they looked at the photograph a second time later. Differences in color perception are due to the fact that the brain makes up the idea of ​​​​lighting, adjusting the colors so that they look the same in one object in any light. This property is known as color constancy. People who saw the white-gold color thought the dress was illuminated by bright daylight, so their brains ignored the shorter blue wavelengths. Those who saw the blue-black color suggested that the dress was illuminated by warm artificial light. Interestingly, older people were more likely to see the white and gold dress. The reason for this may be the fact that older people are more active during the day, while younger people start their activity in the late afternoon.

Daylight vs artificial lighting

Another group of researchers invited fifteen volunteers to look at the dress, but it was brought to the screen with high resolution under controlled lighting and clear screen settings. Instead of seeing the standard colors of the dresses, the subjects reported seeing a range of shades. Moreover, if the brightness of the light increased, they saw White dress, and if decreased - blue. The researchers found that more often than not, people reported seeing the same colors that can be found in daylight, which is usually bluish at noon and yellowish in the late afternoon. Thus, this phenomenon would not be possible if the dress were, for example, red. It was blue and yellow (gold) colors that created such a hype around this dress, in a different situation no one would have paid attention to it.

New color property

A third study was conducted on 87 college students who were also asked to report the color of their dress. About the same number of people said they see blue-black and white-gold. The researchers then inverted the image so that light stripes were pure gold, while the dark ones were blue. And in a repeat study, 95 percent of participants reported seeing light yellow stripes. Thus, a new property of color was discovered, which concerns the perception of blue and yellow flowers. People are more likely to perceive a color as white or gray if the content of blue changes in it. However, it is not as noticeable with other colors such as yellow, red or green.

The dress, the picture of which was posted on the Internet, divided the planet into two irreconcilable camps.

A photo of a strange dress (pictured in the middle), posted on the eve of the BuzzFeed portal, literally blew up the Internet. “Guys help me, is this dress white and gold or blue and black? My friends and I can't agree and we're going crazy,” wrote one girl, after which millions of users around the world went crazy.

Look at the image and determine: is the dress in the middle white and gold or blue and black?

Few people could imagine that a simple picture can divide Internet users into two irreconcilable camps. Some vehemently claim that they clearly see a dark blue dress with black stripes of lace, others a white dress with gold lace.

It's really all about biology. The difference in perception is explained by how human eye and the brain evolved to perceive the world illuminated by light. Light that enters the human eye hits the retina, which consists of two types of photoreceptors - cones and rods, which are taught in school. The rods are more sensitive to light, and are more responsible for perceiving the shape rather than the color of objects. Cones, on the contrary, are more responsible for the perception of color, rather than the degree of illumination of the object. In other words, at dusk we perceive the world more with rods than with cones.

The one in which color scheme various objects are perceived, depends on what is more in the retina of a particular person - rods or cones, and on what kind of light the object is illuminated.

Rods perceive light intensity due to the visual pigment rhodopsin, which is very sensitive to low-intensity light and is destroyed when exposed to bright light. At the same time, it takes about 45 minutes to restore it - which is why a person needs time to get used to twilight lighting normally.

For the same reason, if a person looks at a dress in bright light, then goes into a dark room for half an hour and returns, then most likely the color of the dress will change for him.

“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 at the University of Washington.

What's more, color perception is affected by how our brain tries to adjust colors and light levels to figure out what color an object really is. Just as modern cameras adjust light balance, the human brain does this automatically.

But at the same time, different people either ignore the blue shades, perceiving the image as white and gold, or ignore yellow shades seeing a blue-black dress.

Many other optical illusions are of a similar nature, including the famous example of black and white checkerboard cells.

Real dress colors

And here's what the dress actually looks like.

The actual color of the dress is in line with the minority opinion - the posted photo shows that it is actually blue-black.

What dress did you see?

Explanation

How they see white-gold

Looking at the picture, people who thought the dress was white and gold most likely paid attention to the background. Taking the bright backlight for the sun, they decided that the dress is in the shade, which means that its light areas should change tone towards a bluish tint (for example, due to the same sky).

Something like this in this picture, most will see a white dress, although this is not so

How blue-blacks see

"Blue-blacks", on the other hand, look at the light areas of the dress out of context and clearly state that they are bluish or blue, while instead of the "golden" fragments in the picture, they see black, keeping in mind the effect when due to bright light under at a certain angle, black becomes rusty brown or even golden.