The dress is actually blue or white. The mystery of the blue and white dress

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. , they see the dress as white and gold, and , Kanye West – as 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.

What color scheme different objects are perceived depends on what is more in the retina of a particular person - rods or cones, and on the kind 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 or ignore blue shades, perceiving the image as white and gold, or ignoring yellow shades, seeing blue and black dress.

Many other optical illusions have a similar nature, including the famous example with black and white squares on a chessboard.

A photo of a dress that a girl from Scotland posted on the Internet has divided the whole world into two camps - some see it blue and black dress, other - in white and gold. Who is right and who is deceived by his vision?

The dispute about the color of the dress flared up after a resident of Scotland, Caitlin McNeil, posted a photo of the dress on her blog and asked Internet users: “Help me, is this dress white and gold or blue and black? Me and my friends can't agree and we're going crazy." Within a couple of hours, a photo of the dress spread all over the Internet, and the world was divided into two camps: some began to claim that the dress was blue and black, others were sure that it was white and gold.

What color do you think this dress is in the photo?

It should be noted that there are much more people who see white-gold colors (according to numerous polls on the Internet). In fact, the dress is blue-black, as confirmed by its owner Caitlin. However, this fact did not close the controversy over color.

Why do some people see the dress as blue and others as white?

Scientists tried to answer the question why some people see blue-black and others white-golden colors in the photo of the dress. The human retina consists of two types of photoreceptors - cones and rods. Rods are more sensitive to light and are responsible for perceiving the shape, not the color, of objects. Cones, on the contrary, are responsible for the perception of color, and not for the degree of illumination of an object. In other words, in the dark we perceive the world through rods rather than cones.

Thus, the sensitivity of the color gamut depends on whether there are more cones or rods in the human retina, as well as on how the object is illuminated. “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 one of the largest differences in individual perception I've ever seen,” says Jay Neitz, a neuroscientist in Washington, DC.

What color do you see the dress in - black and blue or white and gold? We are waiting for your comments and do not forget to click on the buttons and

Published 02/28/15 00:46

A serious controversy broke out on social networks over a photo of a dress posted on Tumblr. Meanwhile, scientists tried to explain why for some the dress is blue-black, and for others it is white and gold.

What color is the dress: blue or white?

A dispute has flared up on the Internet about the color of the dress, a photograph of which appeared on the blog of Scottish resident Caitlin McNeil, writes MK. The problem is that three quarters of the voters think that the dress is white and gold, the rest - that the dress is blue or even changes its color.

So, on February 25, a girl under the nickname Swiked published a photo of a dress on Tumblr and asked her friends a question about what color it was.

"Guys, help me, this is intkbbee Is the dress white and gold or blue and black? Me and my friends can't agree and we're going crazy."

After a couple of hours, millions of people were divided into two camps: some claimed that the outfit was blue and black, while others said it was white and gold. But even after the girl confirmed that it was indeed blue with black stripes, the online debate did not calm down...

A photograph of a strange dress, posted the day before by the BuzzFeed portal, literally blew up the Internet, turning the topic into a media virus.

In the photo: is the dress blue or white with gold?

Scientists are interested in a dress that changes color

Meanwhile, neuroscientist from Washington State University (USA) Jane Nitz tried to explain why for some people the dress is blue-black, and for others it is white and gold.

The expert claims that the whole point is in the work of the brain, which figures out what color light is reflected from an object and separates this color from the one it considers “real”.

"Our visual system is supposed to throw out information about lighting and extract information about the color that is actually reflected," Neitz said.

It is noted that the specialist has studied color perception for 30 years. She noted that differences in the perception of dress color are the most significant in her practice.

Different people either ignore the blue hues, seeing the image as white and gold, or ignore the yellow hues, seeing the blue and black dress.

There is also an opinion. So, in what color range various objects are perceived depends on what is more in the retina of a particular person - rods or cones, and on the kind of light that illuminates the object.

Meanwhile, Randolph-Macon College psychology professor Cedar Riener explained that people make judgments based on how they perceive the light in a photograph differently: “Some people decide that the photo shows a blue-black dress that is well-lit (or less reflective). Others think it's a less lit white and gold outfit (it's in the shadows but more reflective)."

John Borghi, who studies cognitive neurobiology at Rockefeller University, spoke about the dependence of what a person sees in the picture on the set of his impressions and expectations, as well as on the level of attention and even eye movements, reports TSN. For example, the idea of ​​the color of a dress can be influenced by what a person looked at before.

In the photo: the real color of the much-discussed dress is blue and black

What color do celebrities think they wear?

Celebrities' opinions were also divided, reports Super.Ru. Armenian Kim Kardashian sees the dress as white and gold, and Kanye West as black and blue. Dima Bilan - white with a slight cornflower blue tint and mustard. Yana Rudkovskaya - black with lavender color. Alena Vodonaeva - lilac with mustard color. Vyacheslav Manucharov - blue and gold. Alesya Kafelnikova - white and gold. Andrey Malakhov - white and gold. Evgeni Plushenko - black and blue. Irina Dubtsova - white and gold. Alena Doletskaya - amethyst blue and chocolate. Nikolay Baskov - white and gold. Julianne Moore - white and gold. Taylor Swift - black and blue. Ksenia Borodina - white with mustard color. Lolita - black with turquoise color. Joseph Prigogine - gold and silver. Valeria - gold and silver.

Internet users' opinions about the dress were divided: the dress got its own hashtag #TheDress. However, the author of the photo had to admit that the dress is actually blue and black. That is, the published image was processed.

But while non-trivial disputes continue online about what color the dress is, the TSN.ua editors have collected the funniest comments from Internet users on social networks.

A few days ago, the Internet was blown up by a photo of a dress. This story had already passed me by, but today at work they still showed me a picture:

I still don’t understand how you can see anything here other than a blue-black dress? 😃

Roman Women's Lace Detail Bodycon Dress Royal Blue

When I returned home, I showed the photo to my five-year-old daughter, then to my wife. They independently named the dress white and gold. Moreover, the Photoshop check did not convince them to look at the dress in a new way. Which led to this thorough investigation.

What Science Says

Objects in life shimmer in different shades depending on their surface (glossy, matte) and lighting. For example, snow is usually not white, but with a blue tint. Believing that the object in the photo is not illuminated by pure white light (for example, orange light from a fire), the brain tries to ignore this color shift. The brain doesn’t want to leave its comfort zone and assume that snow can be different colors. It is much more common to “see” snow as white. Each person's color correction process is unique, hence the controversy over the color of the dress.

Illusions of color perception

To understand that color perception is not so simple, here's a trick: look closely at the center of the first picture, then click on it, and the second picture will momentarily appear in color.

The first picture is a negative (a picture with reverse colors). When the images suddenly switch, compensation continues in the brain, and shades of gray are colored in required colors. What exactly is going on in your head? Perhaps this is akin to addiction, and this is not only inherent in visual perception. For example, the second candy no longer seems as sweet as the first.

What's with the dress?

So, the brain comes up with colors based on its own experience and environment. To figure out the conditions for photographing a dress, the brain needs to cling to something familiar and understandable.

It's like a photographer looking for areas in a photo that should be pure gray in order to compensate for the shooting conditions and bring the colors closer to the real ones ("white balance").

There are several characteristic areas in our photo that indicate bright yellow lighting (or an incorrect shooting mode, which is identical to bright yellow lighting).

In addition, the main color of the dress is similar to blue, passed through a warm (that is, yellow) filter. Of course, to see this for sure, you need experience. Let's check this version: take a photo of a really blue-black dress from Google, put a beige filter on top of it. And finally, we put the same dress (cut out along the contour) over the photo. The blue and black colors, both in light and dark areas, matched down to the millimeter. Let me emphasize what exactly same conversion turned blue and black into what we need:

Here's another photo to check that I didn't change anything:

I hope that after this picture, your doubts about the real color of the dress have disappeared, and what remains is knowledge about the nuances of color perception. By the way, the saturation of blue on that same dress is 20-30%. For comparison, on a snow-white, non-glossy dress in daylight, the blue saturation is within 5%, unless you are next to a large blue building. 20% is “confident” blue, this is the color used in the site header in this post.

Checking the reverse version

In the soft evening light, the bride’s snow-white dress may turn blue, but:
1) together with white, all colors will turn blue, including red, yellow, and “gold”, but this did not happen in the original photo (all these colors are present in the photo in an undistorted form);
2) the original photo was clearly taken not in the evening, but in the light of the sun (or indoors under identical conditions); the light falls from above, this is evidenced by the clear shadows from the cape and from the relief stripes of the dress.

To be fair, let's check this version in Photoshop: Google a white dress and apply a cool blue filter. Let's imagine that the dress was photographed on the beach, late in the evening when the sun had already set. Although this contradicts the original photo with very bright light yellow highlights. So the "white" color does match, but let's take a closer look at what's going on with the other colors:

Evening lighting from the sky is uniform, the shadows from such lighting are blurred and barely visible, and the photograph is dark over the entire surface. These properties are clearly not inherent in the original photo.

Golden color

Gold shimmers from light yellow to dark brown. The stripes on the dress (out of context) may be golden, but they lack the characteristic shine:

The fabric has smoother tints and noticeable roughness. This is what we see in the original photograph upon closer examination. Left - black leather bag and a black plaid, on the right is a dress.

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 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.

Human color perception depends on individual characteristics 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 cones that are less sensitive 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.