48 thoughts on “The dress”

  9. I wonder: do identifiable groups of people tend to see the dress as white/gold and others as blue/gray? If so, is this genetic and, if so, what might be the reasons for this?

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    3. I have not followed the damn story, but difference would be (in principle):
      a) differences in lighting. The dress in shadow can look blue, and its colored areas look black.
      b) differences in how the pictures of the dress are reproduced online. I am sure that is quite a bit of it, especially in the cases where the pictures are shown side by side.
      c) differences in human color perception does exist, but a) and b) is most of this story, imo.

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        1. This is an example. I know that a color can be perceived differently in different backgrounds, but how are the side by side pictures not a case of simply changing the color balances? No optical illusion or difference in color perception here. Its photoshop.

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          1. People looking at the same monitor side by side saw different things. I showed it to several people on my own phone and they saw white and gold while I saw black and blue. It’s happening in the brain.

          2. Yes. Read Pinker’s explanation, which also includes other illusions designed to demonstrate the brain’s mechanisms for lightness constancy and colour constancy

  10. But the photograph (dress) is a fascinating optical effect revealing something fascinating about the brain – and getting people interested in perception. People who otherwise might not. Plus, your mate Pinker has written the best explanation:
    https://t.co/PSYFEC9J0b

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    2. Yeah, the Pinker commentary is right on-it seems to me.IMHO!
      This kind of cognitive disparity exists with regard to concepts also. Scientists are generally trained(a bit) in not going beyond what the text or data actually says (is)and trying to interpret it from the point of view of the writer but this kind of discipline breaks down every so often and wild speculations /accusations result. And scientists do their best to define terms down to impossibility of misinterpretation-which is a two edged sword. Very interesting aspect of mind. All is metaphor and we build ourselves into metaphorical castles-oh well, too much dandelion wine.

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    3. That’s exactly right, John. This is actually a pretty interesting case of color constancy at work, and it has drawn a lot of attention to the vision sciences. I have numerous friends in the field who study visual perception that have been asked to comment on the phenomenon on the radio, tv, news articles, etc. Not every day the public at large takes an interest in how the brain makes color vision possible.

      As annoying as some viral phenomena on the internet can be, I would call this one of the good ones from a public interest in science perspective.

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    4. I am apparently one of few people that can perceive the dress either way, and can shift my perception at will. Which one appears by default depends on whether I look first to the top or the bottom of the picture, which seems consistent with Pinker’s analysis.

      The professor’s Russian Blue has got me confused, though…

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    1. +1. Every freakin’ news show from 3:00pm thru 11:00pm on MSNBC and CNN thought it worthwhile to run with that. Oh, dear gawd I was ready to throw something at the TV. It nearly drove me over the ledge.

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  16. I’m deeply annoyed, nickies are very much into visual illusions, optical illusions, colour vision and mental representations.
    For one reason or the other, I cannot open a single one of the sites concerned with this dress, despite trying half a dozen times for each of them.
    I flatter myself I might have some interesting contribution to make (my turf, as it where), but I’m being excluded.
    Is there a general conspiracy? Or is it just my computer that plays with me? 🙂

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  17. I’m particularly peeved at not being able to access Steven Pinker’s opinion. He is *always* interesting.
    [If I may be ungraceful, he is even more systematically so then our host, I mean, I’m not really into, say, boots. Nevertheless, on the presumption you might think I’m ungrateful -I’m *not* -I think that WEIT is the most interesting website I know, boots and all, even beats RD’s site].
    What was Pinker’s take?

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      1. Thank you. I finally got some view.
        I’ve -to my regret- nothing much to add to Pinker. The second shot of the dress leaves nothing to really argue about and explains it all..
        I must admit I’m somewhat disappointed. I thought it would be about things like fluorescence or ‘layered’ diffraction. Instead it was just ambient lightning. Still interesting, but not really something exciting, immo.
        Something more enigmatic: how many of you know that we do not really have ‘red’ cones? Our ‘red’ cones have their maximum in the yellow, so we can say -without really bending the truth- that ‘red’ is just an illusion.

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        1. I hate it when the few subjects I might have something to contribute to have already been covered! 😀

          Also–cool fact about red.

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