Why Julianne Moore and Taylor Swift see that dress differentl

by STEPHEN L. MACKNIK

PHOTO/Wired

As a visual neuroscientist I think a lot about how we see the world around us. And so I’ve found the scientific and celebrity controversy around #thatdress to be especially fun and exciting. Most of the scientific pundits have concluded that the dress is black-and-blue, and they have offered up an illusions-in-the-brain explanation of why some people see the dress instead as white-and-gold. Yet after thinking thoroughly about this photo, looking at it on a number of different screens, and speaking with some of my lab partners, I’d like to offer my point of view. Yes, there is an illusion at play here that affects our brains, but no, it is not that illusion that causes it to look differently to different people: that difference is caused by a mundane photographic effect.

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