The Dress Controversial and Optical Illusion

  Many of you probably have heard about the debate over the color of a dress that has gone quite viral overnight. Buzzfeed, NewYorkTimes, Tumblr, and several other social media agents commented on this bizarre brain illusion. In fact, it has become such an internet sensation that my biology teacher was flooded with emails and messages demanding for an answer. Thus, he spent about a quarter of the class time talking about his point of view of the hue. Basically the dress is, in fact, blue and black. Duje Tadin from the University of Rochester proposed an interesting theory. He said that due to the variation in the number of blue cones in a specific individual's brain, he or she may interpret the color differently. The more blue cones you have, the more likely you are to see blue. The less blue cones you have, the more likely it is for you to perceive the color as white.

(The second picture is the actual picture that ignited the whole controversy. In the first and third picture, light was added and extracted, making the colors appear different.)

To me, it is simply one of the many optical illusions like the one below. Although square A appears darker than square B, the second picture proves that they are of the same color. Try putting your fingers on the two sides of the squares, covering the screen, as shown in the second picture, and you will notice that they are both gray. In fact, by covering up the green cylinder itself, one perceives the colors better without the shadow casting over one of the squares. The brain tries to fill in the information that is not there by itself. Thus, since the black and white squares are arranged in an alternating pattern, the brain automatically assume that square B is white. 

(http://www.brainfacts.org/sensing-thinking-behaving/awareness-and-attention/articles/2011/sensory-illusions/)

Similar to any other optical illusions, the heated debate over the true color of the dress ranges on despite the confirmation by a British retailer that the dress is black and blue. “Most people will see the blue on the white background as blue,” Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist, says. “But on the black background some might see it as white.” Additionally, the picture is badly taken, altering the lighting of the dress by contrasting it with a lighter background. The positioning of the computer screen in which one views the picture through also plays a role in why we perceive colors differently. Essentially, the computer screen reflects light that bounces off and then enters the retinal. Try tilting the computer screen while looking at the dress and you will notice a difference in the color.

Citations:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/28/business/a-simple-question-about-a-dress-and-the-world-weighs-in.html

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/