Rosa Lafer-Sousa
Neuroscientist and first author of the 2015 study that surveyed 1,401 people about the dress.
Who they are
The survey was free-response, which matters more than it sounds. The original social media question offered two options, so a sceptic could argue the apparent split was an artefact of being asked to choose.
Most people still reported white and gold or blue and black when nobody handed them a menu.
Key papers
Lafer-Sousa, R., Hermann, K. L., & Conway, B. R. (2015). Current Biology, 25(13), R545-R546.
Key ideas
A smaller group reported blue and brown, the colours the pixels actually are.
Reports of white and gold were higher among older people and among women, and some observers switched on retest, so the image is multistable.
The colour-gamut task produced three peaks corresponding to the three descriptive categories, evidence that the brain settles rather than spreads.
Concepts on this site
Sources
- doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.04.053