The researchers from the University of York found that fantastic human vision has the ability of colour perception that varies with seasons.
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Though whether a person sees the garment as white and gold or black and blue appears to be largely the result of a person’s perception of the image’s lighting, the phenomenon of priming – we expect to see the colors that we are used to seeing – plays a comparable role in how perception of unique yellow varies based on the season.
‘If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision, ‘ Zhong said.
Yellow is, however, perhaps the most unique of the “unique” colors. Researchers have begun to discover the reason why unique yellow is extremely stable and how it could be changed together with the natural world’s color.
For their study, researchers placed 67 men and women in a darkened room in January and June. Afterwards they were enabled to adjust to the light and finally they were required to use a colorimeter in order to adjust a dial forwards and backwards until they considered that they had reached the color unique yellow.
‘I take lots of measurements of the setting in both seasons, and find a shift in the average setting between seasons, ‘ Ms Welbourne said. So our vision compensates for the change and this affects the way in which we perceive yellow.
Researchers hypothesized that human consensus on yellow might be inspired by seasonal changes, not necessarily biology.
‘For me as a vision scientist it is fascinating as it is telling us more about how visual processing works.
So while the dress made many of us more aware of how our minds process color, this study illuminates the phenomenon on a scale that, according to Welbourne, is unprecedented.
‘This can have knock on effects on the way we diagnose and treat visual disorders.’.
She went on to say she believes that human visual systems naturally try to balance how we perceive color as the colors around us change seasonally.
Lauren said it provides an example of how humans constantly adapt to their surroundings.
‘Many places in the world have very different environments throughout the year – think about the changes that the rainy season brings to India, or winter and summer in the arctic.
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She pointed out that this process is useful because humans can adjust to the huge seasonal changes which occur in the environmental color and still be able to see and distinguish color accurately.
