Exploring the Determinants of Color Perception Using #Thedress and Its Variants: The Role of Spatio-Chromatic Context, Chromatic Illumination, and Material-Light Interaction.

Stacey Aston,Bradley Pearce,Annette Werner,Maria Olkkonen,Bei Xiao,Anya Hurlbert,Kristina Denisova,Michael Rudd

doi:10.1177/0301006620963808

Abstract

The colors that people see depend not only on the surface properties of objects but also on how these properties interact with light as well as on how light reflected from objects interacts with an individual’s visual system. Because individual visual systems vary, the same visual stimulus may elicit different perceptions from different individuals. #thedress phenomenon drove home this point: different individuals viewed the same image and reported it to be widely different colors: blue and black versus white and gold. This phenomenon inspired a collection of demonstrations presented at the Vision Sciences Society 2015 Meeting which showed how spatial and temporal manipulations of light spectra affect people’s perceptions of material colors and illustrated the variability in individual color perception. The demonstrations also explored the effects of temporal alterations in metameric lights, including Maxwell’s Spot, an entoptic phenomenon. Crucially, the demonstrations established that #thedress phenomenon occurs not only for images of the dress but also for the real dress under real light sources of different spectral composition and spatial configurations.

Highlights

In 2015, an image of a dress (#thedress) went viral as people divided roughly into two populations, depending on how they named its colors: blue/black or white/gold
We report a series of demonstrations using real materials in three dimensions, including the real dress, presented at VSS 2015, which probe the principles underlying the individual variability of color perception under changing illumination spectra
The demos presented at the 2015 Vision Sciences Society Dress Pavilion illustrate using real materials and lights that how #thedress is perceived depends on the illumination impinging on the dress as well as its spatio-chromatic context

Summary

Introduction

In 2015, an image of a dress (#thedress) went viral as people divided roughly into two populations, depending on how they named its colors: blue/black or white/gold. When the real dress (blue colorway1) is illuminated simultaneously by two light sources, one blueish and one yellowish, its appearance differs from that under a single white light, and people disagree on its color.

Results

Conclusion