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

Abstract

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.

Stripping #The Dress: the importance of contextual information on inter-individual differences in colour perception

“…The frequency of particular viewer types varies between studies (Chetverikov & Ivanchei, 2016;González Martín-Moro et al, 2018;Karlsson & Allwood, 2016;Wallisch, 2017). Using an unconstrained colour term choice methodology in the current study, we report an approximately even split between B&B and W&G viewers (similar to Aston & Hurlbert, 2017;Chetverikov & Ivanchei, 2016;Hesslinger & Carbon, 2016;Karlsson & Allwood, 2016;Schlaffke et al, 2015;Vemuri et al, 2016;Winkler et al, 2015). We further confirm that several individuals reported seeing the ambiguous Dress picture as B&Br (Aston & Hurlbert, 2017;Lafer-Sousa et al, 2015;Mahroo et al, 2017;Wallisch, 2017;Witzel et al, 2017).…”

“…Results from the classroom study yielded three self-reported viewer types: the expected B&B and W&G viewers, but also the previously mentioned group of B&Br viewers. The frequency of particular viewer types varies between studies (Chetverikov & Ivanchei, 2016;González Martín-Moro et al, 2018;Karlsson & Allwood, 2016;Wallisch, 2017). Using an unconstrained colour term choice methodology in the current study, we report an approximately even split between B&B and W&G viewers (similar to Aston & Hurlbert, 2017;Chetverikov & Ivanchei, 2016;Hesslinger & Carbon, 2016;Karlsson & Allwood, 2016;Schlaffke et al, 2015;Vemuri et al, 2016;Winkler et al, 2015).…”

“…In the initial Internet survey of about three million respondents, 68% of the respondents indicated seeing the ambiguous Dress picture as W&G and 32% of the respondents as B&B in a forced-choice situation (Holderness, 2015). Subsequent studies reported a higher proportion of W&G viewers (Dixon & Shapiro, 2017;Mahroo et al, 2017;Moccia et al, 2016;Wallisch, 2017;Witzel, Racey, & O'Regan, 2017), a higher proportion of B&B viewers (Chetverikov & Ivanchei, 2016;Lafer-Sousa et al, 2015), or an equal split between the two viewer types (Aston & Hurlbert, 2017;Chetverikov & Ivanchei, 2016;Hesslinger & Carbon, 2016;Karlsson & Allwood, 2016;Schlaffke et al, 2015;Vemuri et al, 2016;Winkler, Spillmann, Werner, & Webster, 2015) using forced-choice and free naming paradigms. In studies that went beyond the possibility of two viewer types, mainly using freenaming paradigms to assess the colours of the ambiguous Dress picture, an intermediate variant of the Dress perception emerged -participants reported seeing the Dress as blue and brown/gold (B&Br) (Aston & Hurlbert, 2017;Lafer-Sousa et al, 2015;Mahroo et al, 2017;Wallisch, 2017;Witzel et al, 2017).…”

“…not seeing the ambiguous Dress picture as W&G anymore, but as B&B or B&Br. This observation could explain why the initial Internet survey with 3 Jonauskaite et al (in press) 26 -26 -million participants (Holderness, 2015) reported a larger number of participants seeing the ambiguous Dress picture as W&G while later studies reported a more even split between B&B and W&G viewers (e.g., Karlsson & Allwood, 2016). Some initial W&G viewers might have become B&B or B&Br viewers after repeated exposure to this image.…”

The dress and individual differences in the perception of surface properties

“…The observation that prior experience with disambiguating images influences the perception of the dress indicates the important role of top-down influences on the perception of the dress ( Witzel, Racey, et al, 2016 ; Witzel et al, 2017 ). Further support for this idea comes from an fMRI study according to which white-gold seers have a stronger activation of brain regions critically involved in high-level processing, such as frontal and parietal brain areas ( Schlaffke et al, 2015 ), from a study that found delayed visually evoked potentials in white-gold seers, which are indicative for the activation of higher cortical brain areas ( Rabin et al, 2016 ), and from evidence for the role of beliefs about the real scene in the perception of the dress ( Karlsson & Allwood, 2016 ).…”