Blue dress retailer sees gold. How about you?
Roses are red, violets are blue…or are they? It might depend on who you ask. If you’ve been anywhere near any forms of media in the last few weeks, you couldn’t have missed the blue dress debate. A photo of a dress, worn by the mother of a bride before a wedding on the Scottish island of Colonsay, was posted on the internet and immediately caused a sensation worldwide as people debated whether the color of the dress was blue-and-black or white-and-gold.
For English retailer Roman Originals, who sells the dress, it turned out to be pure gold. Employees of the company fielded hundreds of calls and e-mails about the dress. Their website received over one million hits within the first 18 hours following the photo’s worldwide distribution. The dress sold out within minutes.
According to an Associated Press article, Michele Bastock, Design Director at Roman Originals, confirmed that the dress is royal blue and has a black trim. When photographed in a particular light, the dress can appear differently. Even the staff at Roman Originals was surprised to see the variation, with half of the employees seeing white-and-gold in the photo and the rest seeing blue and black.
“This photo provides the best test I’ve ever seen for how the process of color correction works in the brain,’” said Daniel Hardiman-McCartney, the clinical adviser to Britain’s College of Optometrists. “I’ve never seen a photo like this before where so many people look at the same photo and see two sets of such dramatically different colors.”
According to Hardiman-McCartney, there isn’t anything wrong with seeing either one of the color variations. He stated that the yellow-toned backlighting in the photo, in addition to the striped style of the garment, provides the brain with an opportunity to select which colors should be seen in detail.
Those who subconsciously seek detail in the many horizontal black lines convert them to a golden hue, so the blue disappears into a blown-out white, he said. Others, he said, whose brains focus on the blue part of the dress see the black-and-blue garment. It isn’t an indicator of a problem with your vision or eye care.
The dress discussion even launched a spin-off debate with a Salvation Army media campaign featuring the photo of an abused woman whose face appears black and blue and the headline “Why is it so hard to see black and blue?”
To understand why people see the dress differently, it’s important to understand how the brain interprets images. Light rays from the object pass through the lens of the human eye, hitting the retina situated in the rear of the eyeball. The retina reacts with the different wavelengths and transmits the signals to the brain's visual cortex, where signals are interpreted and transformed into images that can be comprehended. Normally during this process, extra colors are eliminated so that true colors show through. However, sometimes the process doesn’t work perfectly and the brain gets confused, resulting in what’s commonly referred to as an “optical illusion.”
James Pomerantz, a professor of psychology at Rice University and a visual perception expert, was quoted in an article appearing on DogoNews as saying “The main point is that we can’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.” This lack of knowledge has resulted in what may be one of the most debated issue of recent times.
Although seeing color variations like this is not uncommon, eye care is an important part of every good healthcare regime. It’s always a good idea to have regular visits with your eye doctor. If you’re looking for an optometrist or eye doctor for vision screening in the Chicago, IL area, consult Doctors for Visual Freedom. We have an experienced team in place to diagnose any vision problem and will work with you to find a solution.
