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Do you remember the dress? Endless debates raged on in offices across the world about whether it was blue and black (which it was) or white and gold.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Well now the color dilemma is back. This time in the form of Nike shorts, shoes, and a top. No peeking below, what color do you see here?
Despite the fact that they are grey and blue (at least to me!), people all over the Internet say they see all sorts of other color combinations. Some people see the colors as blue and pink, others say they see pink and white.
Some bizarre people even say they can see both.
One person has thrown a massive spanner into the works by introducing the color mint green.
Dropping this photo into the color select tool on Photoshop suggests the logo is on the blue spectrum.
If you select the material around the logo, the color picker tool shows it as grey, albeit with hints of a reddish hue. Both colors are on the border between white-blue and red-grey, so perhaps that plays a role.
So why the discrepancy in our perception of it?
First up, it's not your screens. Several people can stare at the same screen and still see different colors.
With the dress and the Nike trainers, it's likely an example of a phenomenon known as color constancy. This ability ensures that the perceived color of an object remains constant, despite changes in the illumination conditions.
That means the context, or surroundings, in which an object appears influences our perception of it. In this instance, there is little to give us context, so our brain makes our own interpretation about what sort of light is falling on the clothes.
Check out this video for more information on how the optical illusion works.
