Can the Brain Really Confuse Colors?

Perhaps you’ve noticed that the color of the same thing can be perceived differently by people.

Our brain may perceive colors incorrectly, but only individuals with color blindness can experience this phenomenon.

Our consultant ophthalmologist will provide insights into the mechanisms of color perception, the factors contributing to individual differences in color perception, as well as the causes and implications of color blindness and other color vision disorders.

Let’s analyze why the same dress in a photo on the internet appears as blue and black to some people, but as white and gold to others.

How we perceive colors

The eyes and the brain continuously work together to create vision when light enters the eyes, forming an image that the retina then converts into nerve signals that it sends to the brain.

The brain cortex flips back the image, processes the information, and enables us to comprehend what is in front of us.

Objects become visible to us when they reflect sunlight. White light is not truly white as it consists of various colors of light waves with different lengths. Suppose a red cube is hit by light, it absorbs all wavelengths except for those in the red spectrum. The red wavelengths are reflected and enter our eyes, enabling us to see the red color.

Photoreceptors are special cells located on the retina of the eye. They perceive light waves of different lengths and send nerve impulses to the brain, allowing us to see different colors.

Daytime vision

Separate type of photoreceptors called cones are responsible for daytime vision. There are three types of them:

• Sensitive to short light waves – blue spectrum.
• Sensitive to medium light waves – green spectrum.
• Sensitive to long wave spectrum – red spectrum.

Three types of photoreceptors are enough for us to distinguish a multitude of colors – up to 10 million. The thing is that objects usually reflect a combination of light waves of different lengths. The brain understands which color to see based on how many different photoreceptors are activated and in what proportion.

The lemon provides a vivid example of how colors are seen and distinguished. In this process, two types of cones – red and green – are activated by the light reflected from the lemon during the day. The cones then send a signal to the visual cortex of the brain through the optic nerve. The brain evaluates the strength of the signal and the number of activated cones, resulting in the perception of the color yellow.

Twilight vision

Another type of photoreceptors called rods works in the darkness. They do not allow us to see colors, so in poor lighting conditions, all objects will be of different shades of gray, including the same lemon.

Why do people argue about the color of the dress?

It turns out that in reality, objects do not have color. They only reflect light waves of different lengths, perceived by the brain as color.

When a dress is exposed to light, it reflects some of the light waves and stimulates varying degrees of rods and cones in the retina based on the lighting. Consequently, individuals can perceive the dress color differently, which is affected by the lighting in which they view the photograph and the image background.

For example, those who see the dress as white and gold may attribute its appearance to the bright lighting behind the object, causing their brain to conclude that it is in a shaded area. This can lead to the white color appearing slightly bluish, causing the brain to form an image that compensates for this optical illusion by removing the blue color.

However, the brains of those who see the dress in blue-black colors may rely on the fact that black color under bright lighting can appear dark brown or even slightly golden. That is why the dress looks dark to them.

Also, in the post of the woman who first published the photograph, it was mentioned what colors the dress could be, and the brain can also use this information to orient itself in its assessment.

Why do people associate yellow with lemons?

Past experience, environment, and other factors influence the function of our brain, causing it to perceive the world in a non-impartial and non-objective manner. Our visual memory and expectations, for instance, dictate the way we perceive an object’s color.

People expect a lemon to be yellow and consequently perceive it as such, even when it is not entirely yellow. Minor deviations from this expectation are generally unnoticed, but an orange-colored lemon, for instance, will be promptly noticeable as different.

How does color blindness affect people’s perception of the world?

A person with Daltonism, also known as color blindness, experiences a disorder of color perception due to the improper function or absence of one or several types of cones.

A person with color blindness either loses the ability to see a certain color or perceives a different color instead. This condition can manifest in various ways, with protanopia being the most common form, affecting the perception of red and green colors, and tritanopia being a less common form, affecting the ability to perceive blue and yellow colors.

There are different degrees of color blindness. Some people with mild color deficiency can distinguish colors normally in good lighting, but have difficulty in dim light. Others cannot distinguish certain colors under any lighting.

Full color blindness, or achromatopsia, is a very rare condition in which a person sees the world in black and white.

Some data suggests that one in every ten men experience some degree of color deficiency. In most cases, affected individuals adapt well despite the mild nature of the disorder.

On the contrary, women may have more cones than necessary. Thus, there are studies suggesting that in 12% of women, there are four types of cones in the retina instead of three. They are capable of perceiving 100 times more colors than other people.

It is not possible to cure color blindness: medicine cannot yet correct or replace malfunctioning cones in the retina.

On the internet, special glasses and lenses with a color filter can be found for people with color blindness. In some cases, they can help see colors a little more clearly, but they will not completely eliminate the color vision defect and are useless for noticeable impairments in perception.