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, 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 at first glance: 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 a lively discussion around mysterious dress didn't 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. So some can see the fabric white, 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 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?
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 user social network. 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 it in the photograph blue and black dress(these turned out to be, as according to all other statistics, a minority), others clearly saw the 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 time 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 dispute is based on the biological differences between people - different people saw conflicting colors in a 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, then 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 have a “temporary failure”; they will later recover.
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.
Most likely, you have already seen this dress, and you probably have your own opinion about its color. But the whole world still cannot come to a clear opinion. For some it is invariably blue-black, for others it is white and gold and nothing else!
There were even cases when a person at first thought that the dress was the same color, and then after some time he was sure of the opposite!
This dress has already caused too much trouble. It's time to face the truth and find out what color it really is.
The same photo of the dress that caused so much controversy:
According to some, the original dress, if the lighting were better, should look like this:
Others believe that if it weren’t for the excessive light, the dress would have looked like this:
But why do people see different colors in the same photo? There is one version about this, and it has nothing to do with the monitor settings, nothing depends on them, we checked.
It's all about how the eyes of each individual person react to an illuminated object. Some people decide that the dress is not lit enough (or that its surface is highly reflective) and their brain signals their eyes to compensate. Hence the white-gold color. Others think the dress has too much light falling on it (or the surface is less reflective) and their eyes tell them it is blue-black.
Everything is like in the famous Adelson optical illusion. In the picture, square "A" is the same color as square "B", although it seems that this is not the case.
In general, it turns out that a person’s eyes see an image the way the brain perceives it. Also great importance has past experience. If a person has seen a fabric with a similar texture or a similar dress in a certain color, this will likely influence what color they see in the photo of the dress. Scientists still know little about this phenomenon called “perception difference.”
And here is a photo of the real dress. It still turned out to be blue-black.
How a new mystery excites the minds of Internet users. It would seem a simple question, what color is the dress in the photo?
A photo of a strange dress (in the middle of the picture), 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“, wrote one girl, after which millions of users around the world went crazy.
Read in full in the source with photos:
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 - White dress with gold lace.
Read in full in the source with photos:
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 contrary, 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.
We also asked our visitors a question - what color of dress do you see? Is it white and gold, or dark blue?
So far, those who see white and gold are in the lead, but about 30% of people think that it is dark blue!
A photo of a strange dress (in the middle of the picture), 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 stripes of lace, 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 contrary, 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.
Photo report: What color is the dress through the eyes of celebrities?
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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'm studying individual characteristics I've been doing 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.
"Gazeta.Ru"
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.
