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"That dress" - Are people really that visually illiterate?


rodeo_joe1

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<p>Just to be clear, Lannie, I couldn't make it go back and forth. But I did have to force myself to stare at it after that bright walk in the snow, because my altered perception of it was so dramatically different (for 45 minutes or so) that I really had to persuade myself that the experience was real. It's somewhat unsettling, actually. But as someone who's used cameras and played with lighting (photographic gear, stage lighting etc) for forty or so years, I've encountered many occasions where I could experience and note myself mis-perceiving something, animal-style, that I understood, academically. That's the most interesting thing about this particular effect: you can "watch" your brain working. It forces all sorts of fun philosophical issues to the surface. </p>
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<p>If you look at a histogram of a large section of the dress from Landrum's link (here using Nik Color Efex 4), you can see that there are a wide range of colors to observe; lots of blue, but with the dominant peak actually being red!</p>

<p>I think that what Matt was experiencing after walking in brightly lit snow was due to the phenomena of afterimage, where, from Wikipedia,</p>

<p>"Negative afterimages are caused when the eye's <a title="Photoreceptor cell" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_cell">photoreceptors</a>, primarily known as <a title="Rod cell" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_cell">rods</a> and <a title="Cone cell" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell">cones</a>, <a title="Neural adaptation" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_adaptation">adapt</a> to overstimulation and lose sensitivity. ..... The photoreceptors that are constantly exposed to the same stimulus will eventually exhaust their supply of <a title="Photoreceptor protein" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoreceptor_protein">photopigment</a>, resulting in a decrease in signal to the brain. This phenomenon can be seen when moving from a bright environment to a dim one, like walking indoors on a bright snowy day. These effects are accompanied by neural adaptations in the occipital lobe of the brain that function similar to <a title="Color balance" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance">color balance</a> adjustments in photography. These adaptations attempt to keep vision consistent in dynamic lighting." Perhaps in bright sunlight red and green photoreceptors exhaust before the blue ones do? That would explain Matt's observation.</p><div>00d9hA-555289284.jpg.ad149d5c524b67a68c5681f130a4688c.jpg</div>

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<p>Well my wife and I just looked at the dress on my computer sitting in the same chair, and sure enough we're seeing totally different colors. So what is the color of the dang dress in reality, does anyone know? I contend it's more or less white, and gold. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. ;);)</p>
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<p>The dress itself is blue with black lace trim. But that doesn't matter. We're not looking at the dress. We're looking at a badly exposed JPG well out of color balance. So we need to stop referring to it as "that dress" and refer to it as what it is: "that JPG."</p>
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<p>As near as I can tell, <a href="http://swiked.tumblr.com/post/112073818575/guys-please-help-me-is-this-dress-white-and"><em><strong>this</strong></em></a> was the image that started it all.</p>

<p>Matt, is that the image that you were talking about seeing differently before and after your walk outside?</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure that there are cases where the angle of the monitor can cause some ambiguity as well.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<p>Lannie:<br /><br />I controlled very carefully for the angle of view. I spend untold hours in front of this same display, positioned just so for ergonomics - I know what I'm looking at. The difference between seeing it one way or another was, for me, 100% based on whether and how my eyes had recently adjusted for bright (outside, in my case) light or not.<br /><br />Here's a Wired article:<br /><br /> http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/<br /><br />in the image they provide, the left-most rendering is how I perceived the image from my first encounter with it. The middle (original) tips back and forth a bit depending on what my eyes have been recently exposed to, brightness-wise. The right most deep-blue rendering is interesting as a talking point, but not something anyone is seeing, per se.</p>
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<p>Matt, I don't doubt your account at all. I haven't tried that (viewing after coming in from the sun). On my laptop, the angle of view can influence the colors I see dramatically in this case, but not previously that I know of. I haven't viewed it on a regular monitor, just the laptop.</p>

<p>I'm still puzzled by the whole thing, not by your experience, Matt. What you are saying makes sense. I just wonder in general if people are even talking about the same image in many cases.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>I just wonder in general if people are even talking about the same image in many cases.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As photographers, we all know about the huge differences in people's display/device settings and viewing conditions. I think it's safe to say that even if we could be sure the same exact JPG file was indeed being handed to all of their web browsers, that wouldn't NOT be being shown, in practical terms, the same image. The display device plays too large a role in the rendering (to the eye) of the image to make any nation-wide discussion of what's being seen even close to a fair test in the clinical sense.<br /><br />But given the huge number of people that have seen it, and the wide disparity, there's still some there, there. This particular image and its context (or lack of it) happens to live in a boundary zone out of which it's easily tipped, perception-wise, one way or the other. There are apparently some people who see blue-tinged white with gold, but for whom blue-black pops out if they only squint while looking at it.<br /><br />But there's no arguing with the RGB values in the image. The gold hue, and muddy tone is real - "black" isn't there. But if you desensitize your eyes, or let in less light (or dim a display, or push contrast on that display), mud can go black pretty easily. </p>

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<blockquote>

<p>This particular image and its context (or lack of it) happens to live in a boundary zone out of which it's easily tipped, perception-wise, one way or the other.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I think you sum it up pretty well, Matt. There is also apparently a wide variety of variables that can affect perception when something is on the boundaries of color perception. I know nothing about color, but this is fascinating. </p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

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<p>I came across an excellent presentation on visual perception as it relates to art, including photography, by Harvard neurobiologist Margaret Livingston at<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=338GgSbZUYU<br /> Skip over the first five or six minutes, which do not relate directly to her talk. A number of the concepts and illustrations presented relate to the present discussion.</p>
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<p>Having seen links to the official "dark blue and black" dress, I'm belatedly obliged to realise that, when your camera is suitably confused over both exposure and white balance, a reflective black satin sheen can be given a yellow hue. (Though I still dispute how "black" something that shiny really is.)</p>

<p>Have we covered what the camera was? I'd kind of like to avoid one whose auto-white balance is that primitive...</p>

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