Did you all just skip over my science post? I'm feeling insulted. lol
I missed this!! I came in at the end of the thread. I am interested.
It's obviously an optical illusion (duh). I mean, it's changed before my eyes several times. It is fascinating. It's so weird that H has only seen blue and black after looking at it several times and it keeps changing for me. Either way, fucking weird man.
Did you all just skip over my science post? I'm feeling insulted. lol
I missed this!! I came in at the end of the thread. I am interested.
It's obviously an optical illusion (duh). I mean, it's changed before my eyes several times. It is fascinating. It's so weird that H has only seen blue and black after looking at it several times and it keeps changing for me. Either way, fucking weird man.
Post by youhadmycuriosity on Feb 27, 2015 1:44:38 GMT -5
I was staunchly white and gold, then I could only see blue and black, then I could will it to change depending on the angle- now it's only blue and black.
What is crazy is that I am seeing this eeverywhere - first on here, then on Facebook, then sat behind two people arguing about this on public transit.
Sorry if someone has brought this up, as I haven't read the last 11 or so pages of the thread, but I am fascinated about the sociological implications of the day that everyone went batshit crazy over the color of a dress. Maybe it's because I've had a couple rum and cokes, but it seems like an apt metaphor for why we (general "we", people in general) get so heated in discussions about politics, life, etc- we see what we see, and we feel angry that someone else does not see WHAT IS RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES. How can we be looking at the same thing, on the same screen, (ie, the same issue, with the same data points), and still be seeing something entirely different?!
I'll go sit in the corner with my rum and coke now.
ETA: my first thought when I saw this was not that we are all legitimately seeing something different, but that it is an elaborate prank where someone is changing the picture- I don't know what that says about me as a person. Back to the corner with me.
I was staunchly white and gold, then I could only see blue and black, then I could will it to change depending on the angle- now it's only blue and black.
What is crazy is that I am seeing this eeverywhere - first on here, then on Facebook, then sat behind two people arguing about this on public transit.
Sorry if someone has brought this up, as I haven't read the last 11 or so pages of the thread, but I am fascinated about the sociological implications of the day that everyone went batshit crazy over the color of a dress. Maybe it's because I've had a couple rum and cokes, but it seems like an apt metaphor for why we (general "we", people in general) get so heated in discussions about politics, life, etc- we see what we see, and we feel angry that someone else does not see WHAT IS RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES. How can we be looking at the same thing, on the same screen, (ie, the same issue, with the same data points), and still be seeing something entirely different?!
I'll go sit in the corner with my rum and coke now.
ETA: my first thought when I saw this was not that we are all legitimately seeing something different, but that it is an elaborate prank where someone is changing the picture- I don't know what that says about me as a person. Back to the corner with me.
I think I have read enough about this to find what I believe to be the answer: (I haven't read elle's science link, so I don't know if it backs up my interpretation, but here it is.)
The particular cropping and lighting conditions of this photo is confusing your brain. Your brain is like "okay, is this an image of a black and blue dress in the light, or is this an image of a white and gold dress in the shade?"
The glare behind the dress and the light on the dress from the front make it hard for your brain to tell whether the dress is in light or in shadow. Because it's cropped so close, there isn't enough context for your brain to make the right decision.
The part of your brain that interprets light from your eyes as shape and color knows that when a light color is in the shade, it will look darker to your eye.
Your brain doesn't want you to confuse a white thing for a black thing just because it's in the shade, so it compensates for this by making the thing actually look lighter than it really is. Your eye is feeding your brain "blue," but your brain is like "mmm, but it's in the shade, so it's probably really white and just looks blue. So, eye, from now on, you will see this as white." So that's what it looks like.
Some people's brains are deciding the opposite. Their eye is feeding their brain the same blue that team white is seeing. But team blue's brain is like "Yep. Blue dress in the light. Good work eye." And the dress continues to be read as blue.
For some, their brain only needs to decide "white or blue" once, and the decision will stand from then on. For others, their brains are going back and forth, and trying to reinterpret the context. Your brain flips and decides "no, wait, maybe that is light. Okay, yeah, blue." And now it's blue.
Walla.
This is the dress from Amazon:
This is blue and black, because your brain is not confused about where the light is coming from.
Here is the same image, tweaked in photoshop to recreate what your brain may be doing to the dress in the original photo:
The person who made this image overexposed the original and reduced the shadows. This is exactly what your brain is doing. And lo and behold, white and gold.
Here is a gif of the image being color balanced using the background to set the black point:
It's similar to the mind fuck behind these optical illusions:
In this image, square A and square B are the same color. Your brain is making B appear white because it knows to compensate for the shadow.
This image is the same kind of thing. Your brain is using the context of the apparent depth of the shapes to determine that the bottom square is in the shade, and then compensating for your eye's perception by telling you it's white. Cover the joint between the two squares with your finger and you will see that they are the same color.
This image is the same kind of thing. Your brain is using the context of the apparent depth of the shapes to determine that the bottom square is in the shade, and then compensating for your eye's perception by telling you it's white. Cover the joint between the two squares with your finger and you will see that they are the same color.
I literally gasped out loud when I covered up the joint and saw that they were the same color! LOL.