The article by Rodgers (2015) narrates the controversy about human vision brought into the public domain through social media whereby the media was divided into two aggressive camps; one claiming the dress was blue with black lace fringe or white with gold lace fringe ( Rogers et al., 2015 ). Although the debate encourage a series of studies that sought to understand better how the eye works, it was apparently clear that the differences in visions is created by how wavelengths of light are reflected on the back of the human eye. The neural connection between the back of the eye and the visual cortex then processes the signals into images. It is therefore worth concluding that the color of the images created in the brain after the visual cortex receives the signals is determined by the material itself, the ambience of light that is bouncing off the object, and the other differences that vary from one individual to another. According to Rodgers (2015), the studies that were conducted confirmed that it was a blue-black dress.
To explain the controversial issue of color vision in regards to the dress debate, it is imperative to consult the Young-Helmholtz and Hering’s theories of color vision in order to understand the scenarios. According to the Young-Helmholtz theory which is also known as the trichromatic theory, there are three receptors in the retina that are responsible for the perception of colors (Grondin, 2016). One of the three receptors is sensitive to color blue. As a matter of fact the receptor which is sensitive to color blue is associated with short-wavelength cone receptions. In relation to the trichromatic theory, it can be deduced that the strength of the signals that are send by the receptor cells in the eye determine how the brain interpreted color hence the differences in how different people viewed different colors in the same dress.
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On the other hand, the opponent-process theory which was developed by Hering states that the cone photoreceptors in the eye are interconnected to form a three different and opposing pairs of colors which work in such a way that the activation of one member in a pair inhibits the functioning of other the (Grondin, 2016). The pairs include; blue/yellow pair, the red/green pair and the black/white pair. In relation to the dress debate, it is evident that to those who the dress seems to be in the blue-black color, their cones are activated to see the colors because they are in distinct pairs which are not opposing and vice versa. In both theories, the brain is the central determinant hence a perfect explanation as to why both aggressive groups had different opinions about the color of the dress.
References
Grondin, S. (2016). Color Perception. In Psychology of Perception (pp. 67-81). Springer, Cham.
Rogers, A., Baker-Whitcomb, A., Allain, R., Chen, S., Toutov, A., & Narang, P. et al. (2015). The Science of Why No One Agrees on the Color of This Dress. Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/
