If you have been on the internet at all today, chances are that you would have stumbled across the dress debacle.
It all started out quite innocently. Yesterday, someone posted a picture of a dress on Tumblr, asking users to identify the colour of a dress. And while it might seem like an innocent question to ask, it in fact started the debate of the century (in internet terms.)
The thing is, people across the globe seem to be divided as to what the actual colour of the dress is. While some people see the dress as white and gold, others see the dress as blue and black.
But just how can it be that people can see such opposing colours in the same dress? Well, luckily there is science behind it.
According to Wired, when looking at the dress, your brain is actually trying to correct the over-exposed sunlight. In the process, things don‘t quite work out for certain people. These people include myself, and we are on team white and gold.
The truth is that this dress is blue and black (sorry for all of you who, like me, are adamant that it is white and gold) and that the light the picture was taken in makes the contrast lighter as it is over exposed.
In simple science terms, everyone‘s brain perceives light differently. When we look at something, different wave lengths of light enter our eye lenses. These wave lengths then hit our retinas, which the activates nerves that are connected to our brain‘s visual cortex which then forms the picture we see.
However, our eyes also absorb the wave lengths of light around us, which then has an effect on the way we perceive things. What happens then is that your brain “œcolour corrects“ itself; and it‘s right there where the problem comes in.
Some people‘s brains “œcolour corrects“ differently to others.
Bevil Conway, neuroscientist at Wellesley College said that people either see a less prominent form of the blue side or a less prominent part of the “˜gold‘ side:
“œ…[sic] people either discount the blue side, in which case they end up seeing white and gold, or discount the gold side, in which case they end up with blue and black.“
So, in essence it all comes down to the way in which your brain absorbs and processes light.
Below is an image of all “œthree“ images, with the middle omage being the original.
So tell us, which side of the fence do you sit on? Team, #blueandblack or team #whiteandgold?
P.S – it‘s definitely white and gold.
Source: Science Alert
