The brain's dress code: How The Dress allows to decode the neuronal pathway of an optical illusion

Schlaffke, Lara; Golisch, Anne; Haag, Lauren M.; Lenz, Melanie; Heba, Stefanie; Lissek, Silke; Schmidt‐Wilcke, Tobias; Eysel, Ulf T.; Tegenthoff, Martin

doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2015.08.017

Cited by 39 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Finally, VEPs in response to onset presentation of the Dress showed comparable waveforms for BB and WG, but a prolonged latency to the positive peak for WG observers. This provides an objective, neural index of the difference in perception and is in general agreement with a recent fMRI study which showed that in WG observers the Dress image produces higher activation in cerebral areas mediating higher cognition, including frontal and parietal brain cortex[8]. …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…Winkler and colleagues[7] enhanced this interpretation by showing that pastel blues are often perceived as grey or white while yellows are perceived veridically to further explain the dichotomy. As noted earlier, Schlaffke and colleagues[8] localized WG perception to anterior cortical areas involved in cognition and argue that top-down perception plays a role in the perceptual dichotomy, while Vemuri and colleagues[9] found that WG perception of the dress is associated with smaller pupil sizes, an additional “front-end” factor comparable to what we report herein.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…This explanation has received considerable support from experts in our field and certainly must play a role in the BB vs. WG perception[4–7]. Additional contributing factors include the tendency to perceive light or pastel blues as grey or white[7], which further explains the dichotomous perception, as well as more recent studies indicating separate cortical processing for WG vs. BB[8] and effects of pupil size and possibly retinal illuminance on the percept[9]. However, why some individuals perceive the Dress to be BB and others perceive WG remains enigmatic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Blue-Black or White-Gold? Early Stage Processing and the Color of 'The Dress'

et al. 2016

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PurposeIn Feb 2015 an image of a dress posted on Tumblr triggered an internet phenomenon: Is the Dress blue and black (BB) or white and gold (WG)? Many claim BB and others insist WG while the true colors are BB. The prevailing theory is that assumptions about the illuminant govern perception of the Dress with WG due to bluish lighting and BB due to yellowish. Our purpose was to determine if early stage optical, retinal and/or neural factors also impact perception of the Dress.MethodsThirty-nine subjects were categorized as BB or WG based on their initial perception of the Dress and their perception reported when viewing the Dress on iPhone 5, iPad, and 22” LCD displays. Macular pigment optical density (MPOD) measured with the QuantifEye™ MPS II and visual brainwaves (VEPs) in response to brief presentations of a transparency of the Dress illuminated by a flashing light were measured on each subject and compared between BB and WG groups. Additionally, CIE chromaticity (color) and luminance (brightness) were measured from multiple areas of the Dress image to determine cone stimulation and contrast.ResultsMean MPOD was higher in the WG group (0.49) vs. the BB (0.41, p = 0.04) and median values were higher as well (WG = 0.46, BB = 0.36, p = 0.03). There was no difference in VEP amplitude between groups (p > 0.85) but mean VEP latency was longer in WG (130 msec.) vs. the BB group (107 msec., p = 0.0005). Colorimetry of the Dress showed significantly greater stimulation of blue cones (contrast = 73%) vs. red and green sensitive cones (contrast = 13%).ConclusionsOur findings indicate that observers with denser MPOD may be predisposed to perceive the Dress as WG due to great absorption of blue light by the macular pigment. Moreover, the novel, substantial stimulation of blue cones by the Dress may contribute to ambiguity and dichotomous perception since the blue cones are so sparse in the retina. Finally, the delayed WG VEPs indicate distinct neural processing in perception of the consistent with fMRI evidence that the WG percept is processed at higher cortical levels than the BB. These results do not fully explain the dichotomous perception of the Dress but do exemplify the need to consider early stage processing when elucidating ambiguous percepts and figures.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Blue-Black or White-Gold? Early Stage Processing and the Color of 'The Dress'

et al. 2016

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“…Previous research has investigated the perceptual experience of The Dress’ colors (Brainard and Hurlbert, 2015; Gegenfurtner et al, 2015; Lafer-Sousa et al, 2015; Schlaffke et al, 2015; Winkler et al, 2015; Chetverikov and Ivanchei, 2016; Moccia et al, 2016). This research has suggested that individual differences in the perceptual experience of the colors of The Dress can be explained by differences in assumed light conditions in the scene when the photograph was taken (Gegenfurtner et al, 2015; Lafer-Sousa et al, 2015; Chetverikov and Ivanchei, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Is the Correct Answer about The Dress’ Colors? Investigating the Relation between Optimism, Previous Experience, and Answerability

Karlsson

Allwood

2016

Front. Psychol.

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The Dress photograph, first displayed on the internet in 2015, revealed stunning individual differences in color perception. The aim of this study was to investigate if lay-persons believed that the question about The Dress colors was answerable. Past research has found that optimism is related to judgments of how answerable knowledge questions with controversial answers are (Karlsson et al., 2016). Furthermore, familiarity with a question can create a feeling of knowing the answer (Reder and Ritter, 1992). Building on these findings, 186 participants saw the photo of The Dress and were asked about the correct answer to the question about The Dress’ colors (“blue and black,” “white and gold,” “other, namely…,” or “there is no correct answer”). Choice of the alternative “there is no correct answer” was interpreted as believing the question was not answerable. This answer was chosen more often by optimists and by people who reported they had not seen The Dress before. We also found that among participants who had seen The Dress photo before, 19%, perceived The Dress as “white and gold” but believed that the correct answer was “blue and black.” This, in analogy to previous findings about non-believed memories (Scoboria and Pascal, 2016), shows that people sometimes do not believe the colors they have perceived are correct. Our results suggest that individual differences related to optimism and previous experience may contribute to if the judgment of the individual perception of a photograph is enough to serve as a decision basis for valid conclusions about colors. Further research about color judgments under ambiguous circumstances could benefit from separating individual perceptual experience from beliefs about the correct answer to the color question. Including the option “there is no correct answer” may also be beneficial.

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“…If the way we perceive is determined by how we interpret the background why should there be a continuum of percepts rather than a bimodal distribution of extreme case responses. More recently, there has been of MRI study 7 looking at brain activation regions with the dress phenomenon and asking if the varying percept is a direct result of activation of different networks within the brain. The yellow-gold responders had more activation in their middle frontal gyrus, inferior and superior parietal lobules and inferior frontal gyrus suggesting that there is significant involvement of top-down networks in the perception of this illusion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual Perception: Scientific Lessons Learned From “The Dress” Phenomenon

Jayakumar¹

2016

Ophthalmol Open J

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The brain's dress code: How The Dress allows to decode the neuronal pathway of an optical illusion

Cited by 39 publications

References 15 publications

Blue-Black or White-Gold? Early Stage Processing and the Color of 'The Dress'

Blue-Black or White-Gold? Early Stage Processing and the Color of 'The Dress'

What Is the Correct Answer about The Dress’ Colors? Investigating the Relation between Optimism, Previous Experience, and Answerability

Visual Perception: Scientific Lessons Learned From “The Dress” Phenomenon

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