Scientists have explained the phenomenon of black-and-blue dress – Russian newspaper

The journal Current Biology published a series of articles by authors who have studied the “phenomenon of black-and-blue dress”, which became the main subject of discussion on the Internet at the end of February this year, writes Medportal.ru.

Recall that the controversy has generated picture posted on the blog user of the site Tumblr, which asked its readers to determine the color of the picture in the photo dress. After that, the Internet is divided into two camps – one believed that white dress with gold, others – that blue and black.

The authors of an article published in Current Biology, surveyed about a thousand people who had never who saw this picture. It was found that older men and women see the dress in white and gold colors, while young people and men it has seen the blue-black. According to scientists, this perception depends on how much time a person spends with artificial or natural light. For example, those who work a lot in the evening and at night (ie, young people and men) perceive color dress as if it were photographed in artificial light. Brain, identifying colors, based on previous experience gained, the authors say.

Another article says that the whole thing – in well-matched combination of colors. So, in the evening and morning hours the main color yellow, and in the daytime a bright shades are blue. Given that the original image was attended by only two colors that change depending on time of day, some people are intuitively decide that a picture day, that is white and gold dress and the latter decided that the photo was taken in a room with artificial lighting, and saw the blue-black shades.

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Finally, the third article focuses on the phenomenon called” blue-yellow asymmetry. ” The authors believe that the cause of the optical illusion – a reaction eye on blue objects with blue backlight. The study involved 87 students, who were asked about how they see the color of the blue stripes on the dress. Half of them answered correctly, and other volunteers decided that white stripes. Next, the scientists altered the image so that the black bars become blue, and the blue – gold, and then the majority of volunteers (95 per cent) have seen all stripes in yellow and gold colors.