[조이누리 기자단]이세빈- Optical illusion: Dress color debate goes global

Optical illusion: Dress color debate goes global

조이누리 기자단 이세빈

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On Thursday, February 26th, 21-year-old Scottish singer Caitlin McNeil posed a simple question along with a photo of a dress on the social media website, Tumblr. It said, &ldquo;Guys, please help me - is this dress white and gold, or blue and black?&rdquo;

How about you guys? At first when I see this pic, I said it seems to be Blue black. And I&#39;ve heard that it occurred because of difference in receiving the information of color.

Little did she know that this simple query would ignite an Internet firestorm! As the photo began to circulate across various social media sites, the dress became the center of a worldwide debate. Some firmly believed it was blue and black while others clearly saw it as white and gold. So who was right and why did millions of people see colors that were so far from reality? Read on.

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&nbsp;In order to understand why there was such a disparity in opinion, we first need to learn how the human brain interprets images. In order for us to be able to see, light rays from the object pass through the lens of our eyes and hit the retina situated in the rear of the eyeball. The retina reacts with the different wavelengths and transmits the signals to the brain&#39;s visual cortex. It is here that the signals are interpreted and transformed into images that we can comprehend.

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However it is not as straightforward as it sounds. That&#39;s because the initial rays of light from an object also include what we call illuminating light - rays emanated by the natural surroundings around the object we are trying to view. For example, early morning sunlight causes our eyes to see variations of pink or red. However, our brain has been trained such that it eliminates the extra colors, allowing us to see the true color of the object. While this process is usually extremely efficient, in some cases the brain gets a little confused, resulting in what we call optical illusions. That is precisely what is going on with this dress. According to experts, the confusion over the colors of the dress has to do with the way the image is taken. People see the dress differently because of their sensitivity to the blue background lighting in the photo. FAccording to James Pomerantz, a professor of psychology at Rice University and a visual perception expert, &ldquo;The main point is that we can&rsquo;t tell the difference between white and blue, or black and gold unless we have some independent information about the wavelengths of light illuminating the dress.&rdquo;

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It is this lack of knowledge that has resulted in what is probably the most hotly debated issue of recent times.

It was so hot topic! However, I feel such a ridiculous about it. LOL! Subtle changes occur big difference in result! TNX for reading this article!

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