Harry Shaw

Dr. Rand
UWRT- 1102
2 April 2015
What Color is the Dress?
What do you see, blue and black or white and gold? This was the huge question about a
dress that got thrown around the internet in late February this year. Arguments between friends
and family would be brought up everywhere. But is there any science behind the colors we
perceive? Does cultures or where youre from have an influence in your perception of color?
What do color blind people see? And largest of all, do we all perceive the same color?
To start with we need the basic, scientific definition of what color is. Color is the
reflection of light off of a viewed material. This means that all other wavelengths of light, what
determines color, is absorbed by the viewed material. For example, a white sheet of paper
reflects all light, while a black sheet of paper absorbs all light. But what about different sources
of light; florescent, natural, LED?
Color is determined off of perspective for people. In my introduction I reference an
example of a dress. This actually black and blue dress has been argued as white and gold, but
how could one group of people see one thing and another group see completely different colors?
This is due to color constancy. Color constancy is a color psychology term that discusses how the
surroundings and shading on a material can affect how we see colors. Our brain compensates due
to shading and assumes colors may be darker or lighter than they appear due to how they are
shaded. Our brains due this because we evolved so our eyes could perceive colors in different
lighting. (What Colour)

So back to the dress example. We dont know the surroundings of the dress, whether its
in a store, its being held up by a window, or its outside. This means it depends person to person
where they think this dress is to determine the color they see. People who see a white and gold
dress are perceiving the dress to be outside or near a source of natural light. This is due to the
brain perceiving the shade of blue as a reflection of the sky, from diffusion of the light before it
reaches the dress, and that the gold is unaffected by the light and just has a shimmer to it. And for
people who see the dress as blue and black, they perceive the dress as though it is inside, where
most artificial light is close to white light or similar to it which means there is no extra diffusion
of light. (What Colour) So just based of where you view an object can affect the color of you
perceive. But could where you are from affect what you see?
From culture to culture there are differences in anything you could name; food, customs,
currency, schools. Every culture has a history behind it and every culture is unique in its own
way, even in ways we view things. For example, in china the color red is associated with good
luck and good fortune, but in western cultures, we associate red with hell or negative things like
anger.(Cultural Color) For western culture you can argue we perceive red this way due to our
Christian roots tied with early depictions of Lucifer, the devil. Its weird to think on the other
side of the world red is such a positive color and for us it is so negative. For eastern cultures,
white is a color of death and mourning.(Cultural Color) This means that our wedding dress in
western cultures has a negative connotation to them compared to the happy day it is for us.
But does our perception of colors vary even more than between cultures, does it vary
person to person. Most psychologists would agree. We, as a human race, know for a fact what
wavelengths produce what. We can talk about the science and explain for hours upon hours of
whats the science behind the process of viewing a color, but yet we cant explain what a color

looks like. We can explain how it makes us feel, but our ability to describe the actual color if
inexistent. This phenomenon of stimuli you cant explain is called qualia. Qualia is used to
describe anything we perceive as humans, but cannot explain to another person due to limitations
in our language. The actual inability to explain qualia is called the explanatory gap. (Is Your) If
you try to explain to a blind person what a color looks like, or even something as simple as an
adjective, it just doesnt translate to them. No matter whether you say its a warm color or cold
color, to them warm and cold are temperatures, not tones, so that confuses them more.
The thought process behind not the explanatory gap was discussed through a mock
experiment called Marys Room. The experiment goes like this, Mary is raised in a room
where there is only black and white, no colors. She is given books to read about the psychology
behind people seeing color, but has never seen one. Then she is given a red object, even though
she has learned every bit of information about colors, she still didnt know what one actually
looked like.
But if everyone perceives the same color, then why do we call them the same name?
Naming is something we use throughout language. For this example though weve been raised to
know that the color of a strawberry is red, school buses are yellow, grass is green. What we see
may be different but the names of the colors stay just because thats what weve been taught, so
when we see some color that looks closely to a strawberry, bus, or whatever, we know that color
as the name our language has given it.(Is Your) An easier way to describe this is how in
English we call a color red, but in Spanish speaking countries its rojo, and thats how each
culture knows it as because thats where the people in those cultures were raised.
From a scientific approach though, technically every person makes their own colors up in
their mind. Once the light enters our eyes every persons visual cortex is activated, but each

person views the stimulation differently because no brain is the same as another(report). This
means we can prove whats going on with people when they perceive color, but there is no way
to measure what color they perceive because it is personal. This stimuli that people receive
activates rods and cones, the receptors that determine color and determine shades, so when one
of those types of receptors is messed then that results in color blindness.(King) Also the amount
of cones effect how people see colors. For example, dogs have 2 sets of cones while we have
three, which is why they see less color than we do, but on the other hand there is an animal, the
mantis shrimp, which has 16 sets of cones. This means that this shrimp can see a whole different
spectrum of colors that we will never experience or comprehend.
Color blindness is when people receive colors differently than others. There are many
simulators that try to present what the colors they see when looking at them. For the most part,
people that are color blind understand what color is what, it is just harder to differentiate at
points.(Is Your) This is due to the same factor as mentioned earlier, they have been taught for
years what everyday objects colors are, but once an unknown comes up, they struggle because
some of the colors are very similar. This is why color blindness prevents people from having
certain jobs, because they have to be able to differentiate from certain colors for safety, for
example a pilot flying near a mountain range.
Besides color blindness, some people are just better with colors than others. Typically
women see change in shades better than men. This is due to evolution, dating back to the hunter
gathers. Men realize motion faster than women due, while women will realize color changes that
are smaller in difference than males would see.(Orvitt) Women being the gatherers, would get
vegetation and have to differentiate what was ripe or dangerous based on color. This translates
into how women stereotypically have better taste in paint colors or outfit colors that complement

each other. While men realize speed changes quicker. This translates to how men are better with
eye-hand coordination typically.
So back to the main question, do we all perceive the same color, or is everyones views of
color special? Well, we can scientifically say yes or no, we can make assumptions based off of
theories, but due to there being no way to measure or view exactly what another human sees we
cannot be a hundred percent sure about our answer. It seems with all of the theories we can
assume that we are seeing the same scientific occurrence happening in front of us, but what we
perceive varies between person to person. Colors have been a huge influence through humanity.
Cultures use colors to represent their power and unity. Colors could help in life or death
situations. Color has been around before people were on this earth. But the names and theories
were founded by us, something out of our mind, a label for a scientific occurrence that we
couldnt explain except by just deciding on a name.
Color is used in day to day lives. You use it to attract people, u use it for survival, and you
use it for expression. Color is something that will always be around, but for some people the
colors may click and for others it may be tacky, but thats the thing about perspective, if it works
for you keep it up. Now that over all people are out of the hunters/gatherers stages of evolution,
people use color primarily for expression, which is all about your perspective.
So if anyone ever asks you what color that dress is remember that its a blue and black
dress, but based off of how people may perceive it, you can express why people see some colors
differently. Color isnt a constant, its what you do and what you view that matters.

Cultural Color. empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com. 3/18/15. http://www.empoweryourself-with-color-psychology.com/cultural-color.html

"Is Your Red The Same as My Red?" YouTube. YouTube, 17 Feb. 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
King, Paul. Do We All See the Same Color. huffingtonpost.com. 11/17/14. 3/18/15.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/do-we-all-see-the-same-co_b_5831158.html
Ovitt, Kimberly. "ASU News & Information from the Office of Media Relations and Public
Information." ASU News & Information from the Office of Media Relations and
Public Information. N.p., 1 Sept. 2004. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
"What Colour Is This Dress? (SOLVED with SCIENCE)." YouTube. YouTube, 27 Feb. 2015.
Web. 18 Mar. 2015.

1) One of the most interesting things I discovered was that women and men perceive color
differently due to evolution. I thought that was pretty interesting because it helps the question, do
we really see the same color. also it kinda proves a stereotype, which I find humorous and
interesting, cause stereotypes happen for a reason.
2) My main struggle was the length. I hit five pages and didnt know where to go with it.
3) My question stayed do we see the same color the whole time.
4) If you look at a historical view you can see what others have thought about your topic, also you
can find some interesting things about the roots of your question. For example, how evolution
played a role, and how religion also did.
5) No, I love obsessing on one topic and finding a ton of information and learning new stuff about
interesting topics.
6) I really liked how I approached my audience, I want to make a video for the multigenre project
and this is like the perfect middle ground of facts and conversation for me.
7) Is there a way to insert new cones into someones eye to help potentially cure colorblindness.