There is one unique dress in the world, the color of which has become the subject of great controversy in the English-speaking segment of the Internet. As often happens when controversial situations arise, users are divided into two camps: the first are firmly convinced that the color of the dress is blue-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 published on her blog a photo of a dress with a seemingly simple question, what color it was: 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 across the Internet and gained immense popularity. Within hours, the photo sparked widespread debate. She had her own hashtag #TheDress, which quickly topped the trends in the American segment of Twitter. Almost immediately after the start of the discussion, quite witty photographs and jokes on this topic began to pour in.
Not only ordinary users, but also celebrities took part in the discussions. Thus, the American television star and fashion model, Kim Kardashian, told her Twitter followers that she argued with her husband, the famous American rapper and producer Kanye West, about the color of her dress. American singer Taylor Swift said that she doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about, since “it’s 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 department of the city hospital [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 tried to benefit from the debate over dress color:
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 has created.
A person’s color perception depends on the individual characteristics of his vision. The retina, the structure of which is extremely complex, is responsible for the interpretation of colors in the organ of the visual system. The outermost layer is light-(color-)perceiving and consists of neuroepithelial cells - rods and cones, which perceive light and colors. Cones are responsible for the perception of colors, and rods are responsible for the perception of shades such as gray, black and white. Cones “work” only when the required amount of light hits the object. Thus, some may see the fabric as white, while others may see the color of the same fabric as blue due to insufficient light.
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 the color 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 colors perceived by humans can be reproduced. In contrast to additive color mixing, there are subtractive synthesis schemes. In contrast to additive color mixing, there are subtractive synthesis schemes. As more and more colors are added, the final color will become darker until it is completely black.
Users who believe the dress color 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 less sensitive cones to light, which causes additive mixing. If you increase the brightness of your smartphone or monitor screen, you can see how the dress changes color from white-gold to blue-black.
P.S. 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. Which direction is the dancer spinning?
Incredible facts
What color is this dress? This issue has sparked heated debate online, with users divided into those who believe that this is a white and gold dress, and those who see a 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 photo quickly became an online sensation due to controversy surrounding the true color of the dress. A label #TheDress (dress) began to quickly gain popularity all over the world.
The girl herself said that she did not expect such a reaction to the dress she wore to a friend’s wedding.
Optical illusion
There is actually a scientific explanation for why some people see a blue and black dress while others see a golden and white dress.
The photo itself is optical illusion.
Objects reflect light at certain wavelengths or colors, and the human brain determines the color of an object by taking on the reflected color. This 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 their surroundings make them look different.
In this photo, the surrounding colors are so chaotic that the brain cannot understand what color the dress is.
Is the dress blue or white?
Digital analysis of a photograph of the dress revealed that one of the stains on the black lace is orange in the photograph.
The original photo is in the middle. On the left, the brightness and contrast have been adjusted so that the dress looks more white and gold. On the right, the brightness and contrast have been adjusted to make the dress appear blue-black.
Thus, people who perceive the surrounding area of the dress as dark will see blue as white and black as gold. It depends on how the brain perceives and processes colors.
This dress is actually blue with black lace.
Published 03/02/15 15:34Experts talked about a dress that everyone sees differently.
Scientists have unraveled the phenomenon of the dress that blew up the Internet
vid_roll_width="300px" vid_roll_height="150px">Last week, the Internet community was literally split into two camps thanks to a photo of a dress that was posted. The girl asked her friends what colors they see in the photo of the dress - white and gold or blue and black.
Dress: white or blue - this question tormented users around the world for several days. PHOTO
According to intkbbach According to experts, such a furious dispute, which, according to rumors, managed to lead to several divorces, is a consequence of different perceptions of optical illusions. Thus, the clothing manufacturer reported that the dress is actually blue-black. At the same time, he promised to release a white and gold model.
A dress blue with black or white with gold: scientists point to an optical illusion
To explain the incredible metamorphoses with the dress, scientists ask to remember the optical illusion with a shadow on a chessboard, where the “white” and “black” cells are actually the same color, but the human brain, familiar with the concepts of “shadow” and “chess” board," believes that the colors of the cells should be different, because we think that objects that are in the shadows are actually lighter than they appear. But in reality this may not be the case at all.
The same thing happens with two color images of a Rubik's cube, one of which is viewed through a blue filter, and the other through a yellow filter. It turns out that a person sees one square on the top side of the cube as blue and the other as yellow, but in fact they are both gray.
“All this happens due to the fact that our brain has learned at an unconscious level to take into account the importance of the influence of the light source,” Vesti quotes Dr. Erin Goddard, a cognitive psychologist from Macquarie University in Australia.
To understand which dress is blue or white, the brain takes into account lighting
Scientists point out that when looking at a lace dress, which everyone sees differently, it is necessary to understand the lighting.
"If you look at the RGB values of the black-and-gold portion of the dress, they are yellow-ocher-brown. The rest of the stripes of the dress in the same palette are light blue with purple undertones," said Professor Bart Anderson from the University of Sydney, who is researching visual perception problems in people.
At the same time, it is impossible to determine from a photograph of a dress under what light source it was photographed: whether it is in the shade or in the light, indoors under artificial lighting or outdoors in daylight.
"In addition to the fact that shadows make things appear darker, they have another property. Direct sunlight presents a yellowish filter, which in turn makes us see things bluer - like the Rubik's cube illusion." Artists know this and add blue dye to the shadows to make them more convincing,” added Dr Goddard.
As a result, those who subconsciously believe that the dress was photographed in natural light see the dress as white and gold, while those who think that the dress was photographed in artificial light believe that the item of clothing is blue and black.
On February 27, almost the whole world went crazy because of an ordinary, at first glance, dress - show business stars, fashion gurus, and ordinary social network users argued about what color the dress shown in the photograph was. The media promised to reveal the secret of the dress and explain why some saw a blue-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 photo of the dress that had not yet made a splash and asked her friends to help her determine its color. “Guys, please help. We've already lost our minds with our friends and family, we can't decide the color of this dress.", she wrote. After this publication, not only she, but the entire progressive world went crazy.
What color is the dress actually?
We also joined a 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 (as in all other statistics, these turned out to be a minority), others clearly saw a white and gold dress.
The author of the photo said that The dress is still blue and black, as a minority of voting participants saw it. The original photograph of the dress, in which its true color was clearly visible, was published a little later, when the whole world had managed to rack its brains in search of the correct answer and debates with relatives.
Why does everyone see a dress differently?
It turns out that the whole controversy is based on biological differences between people - different people saw conflicting colors in the photo because the light hit their eye photoreceptors differently. The human retina consists of two types of photoreceptors - cones and rods- the perception of color depends on which of them the light fell on. If one person's retina has more rods or cones than another person's retina, they will see the same object in different interpretations.
Simply put, some people have more rods on their retinas, while others have more cones - this is what made the dress multi-colored 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 what color interpretation he initially saw it in. This will happen because some photoreceptors will fail temporarily, and they will recover later.
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 the controversial shades. Some people's eyes ignore blue shades in certain lighting, while others ignore yellow ones. If a person saw a black and blue dress in a photo, then his eyes ignore yellow shades, and if a white and gold dress - blue.
The dress, a photo of which was posted on the Internet, divided the planet into two irreconcilable camps. Readers of Gazeta.Ru canjointo the global debate.
Photo of a strange dress(pictured in the middle),posted the day before by the BuzzFeed portal, literally blew up the Internet. “Guys, help me, is this dress white and gold or blue and black? Me and my friends can’t agree and we’re going crazy,” one girl wrote, after which millions of users around the world went crazy.
Few could imagine that a simple picture could divide Internet users into two irreconcilable camps. Some vehemently claim that they clearly see a dark blue dress with black lace stripes, others - a white dress with gold lace.
Celebrities' opinions were also divided. Jimmy Fallon, Julianne Moore, Kim Kardashian see the dress in white and gold, and Taylor Swift, James Franco, Kanye West - in black and blue. In reality, this dispute is not social, but biological. The difference in perception is explained by the way the human eye and brain have evolved to perceive the world illuminated by light. Light entering the human eye hits the retina, which consists of two types of photoreceptors - cones and rods, which are taught about in school. Rods are more sensitive to light and are more responsible for perceiving the shape rather than the color of objects. Cones, on the other hand, are more responsible for perceiving color rather than the degree of illumination of an object. In other words, at dusk we perceive the world through rods rather than cones.
The color range in which various objects are perceived depends on whether there are more rods or cones in the retina of a particular person, and on the type of light that illuminates the object.
The rods perceive light intensity thanks 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 - that’s 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 accustomed to discarding information about the light source and drawing information from the actual reflected light. I've been studying individual color vision for 30 years, and this is the biggest difference I've ever seen in individual perceptions,” says Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington.
Moreover, color perception is influenced by how our brain tries to adjust colors and lighting to figure out what color an object actually has. Just as modern cameras adjust the 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 the yellow shades, seeing a blue and black dress.
Many other optical illusions have a similar nature, including the famous example with black and white squares on a chessboard.
Photoshop will help you figure out the true colors in the photo.
The actual color of the dress matches the minority opinion: the photo posted shows that it is actually blue-black.
