Striking individual differences in color perception uncovered by the dress photograph
Lafer-Sousa, Hermann and Conway produced the first systematic study of the dress photograph. The image's pixels are brown and blue, colours associated with natural illuminants, while popular reports split between white and gold and blue and black. A free-response survey of 1,401 people, which removed the forced choice built into the original social media question, still found most people reporting one of those two, with a smaller group reporting blue and brown. White and gold was reported more often by older people and by women, and some observers switched on retest, so the image is multistable. Asked to identify the colours from a complete colour gamut, a measure that does not depend on language, responses formed three peaks corresponding to the three descriptive categories. The authors propose that observers differ in the illuminant they assume, and demonstrate that introducing overt cues to the illumination flips the perceived colour.
Lafer-Sousa, Hermann and Conway produced the first systematic study of the dress photograph. The image's pixels are brown and blue, colours associated with natural illuminants, while popular reports split between white and gold and blue and black. A free-response survey of 1,401 people, which removed the forced choice built into the original social media question, still found most people reporting one of those two, with a smaller group reporting blue and brown. White and gold was reported more often by older people and by women, and some observers switched on retest, so the image is multistable. Asked to identify the colours from a complete colour gamut, a measure that does not depend on language, responses formed three peaks corresponding to the three descriptive categories. The authors propose that observers differ in the illuminant they assume, and demonstrate that introducing overt cues to the illumination flips the perceived colour.
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Free-response survey of 1,401 people; three stable percepts identified in a language-independent colour-gamut task; white/gold reports higher among older people and women; the illuminant-prior account, and the demonstration that adding overt illumination cues flips the percept. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.04.053
Where we use it
- Why You and I See Different Colours, Why We Look
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Lafer-Sousa, R., Hermann, K. L., & Conway, B. R. (2015). 'Striking individual differences in color perception uncovered by the dress photograph.' Current Biology, 25(13), R545-R546. Free-response survey of 1,401 people; three stable percepts identified in a language-independent colour-gamut task; white/gold reports higher among older people and women; the illuminant-prior account, and the demonstration that adding overt illumination cues flips the percept. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.04.053