Im sure by now the majority of you have seen the dress that has people across the world debating its color. The dress is actually Black and blue despite the fact many see it as white and gold. Yet, the question remains, why do some see it as white and gold? What can this tell us about the way we perceive the reality around us?
Human beings evolved to see in daylight, but daylight changes color. That chromatic axis varies from the pinkish red of dawn, up through the blue-white of noontime, and then back down to reddish twilight. “What’s happening here is your visual system is looking at this thing, and you’re trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis,” says Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist who studies color and vision at Wellesley College. “So 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.” Meaning we all perceive the world around us differently based on how our cones and rods within or eyes process the light information it receives.
Light enters the eye through the lens—different wavelengths corresponding to different colors. The light hits the retina in the back of the eye where pigments fire up neural connections to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes those signals into an image. Critically, though, that first burst of light is made of whatever wavelengths are illuminating the world, reflecting off whatever you’re looking at. Without you having to worry about it, your brain figures out what color light is bouncing off the thing your eyes are looking at, and essentially subtracts that color from the “real” color of the object.
This means we all see colors differently. For example Red-Green color blindness is found in 8% of white males. That is 1 out of every 12.5 Caucasian men. Walk through the grocery store, the street, the library, or your office and think about that. Every 12th or 13th white guy you pass sees the world like this:
Human beings evolved to see in daylight, but daylight changes color. That chromatic axis varies from the pinkish red of dawn, up through the blue-white of noontime, and then back down to reddish twilight. “What’s happening here is your visual system is looking at this thing, and you’re trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis,” says Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist who studies color and vision at Wellesley College. “So 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.” Meaning we all perceive the world around us differently based on how our cones and rods within or eyes process the light information it receives.
Light enters the eye through the lens—different wavelengths corresponding to different colors. The light hits the retina in the back of the eye where pigments fire up neural connections to the visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes those signals into an image. Critically, though, that first burst of light is made of whatever wavelengths are illuminating the world, reflecting off whatever you’re looking at. Without you having to worry about it, your brain figures out what color light is bouncing off the thing your eyes are looking at, and essentially subtracts that color from the “real” color of the object.
This means we all see colors differently. For example Red-Green color blindness is found in 8% of white males. That is 1 out of every 12.5 Caucasian men. Walk through the grocery store, the street, the library, or your office and think about that. Every 12th or 13th white guy you pass sees the world like this:
Our neurons aren't configured to respond to color in a default way; instead, we each develop a unique perception of color. Color is a private sensation and so are all your other senses. We all hear, taste, see, and feel the word differently. This is huge for those of us trying to prove the idea that we create the world around us. What we experience is entirely in our control from the day we are born and this dress just set the stage for more discoveries into how our brains process the physical dimension. The world is waking up and it won't be long before more things like this pop up, as more and more people begin to realize how they influence the way the physical dimension looks. Honestly, I find this whole thing very enlightening, especially since so many people have seen it in such a short time. Makes you wonder what else is to come in the near future!