This video is brought to you by NordVPN. Pink and white? Pink and white, he said. What colour do you think these shoes are, Chill? Pink and white? That’s what I thought too. But, apparently they’re mint and white. What? According to who? Billie Eilish. I see green now, but this is the real shoe. I see green. Real shoe—it’s been the real shoe the whole time! Ok, well I trust her. Her father disagrees. He sees the same thing that we do. Whoa, that’s like, y’know, the cute dress everyone was freaking out about years ago. I was thinking the same thing. Like #The Dress, the internet is breaking once more over a curious colour illusion. Today’s episode concerns visual illusions, and colour theory. My apologies to the colour blind in the audience, we even have some folks in our crew who are colourblind. Hey that’s me! And with that out of the way, let’s get into it! Five years ago, the world saw the dawn of a new age. We saw the rise of “The Dress”. If you’re not familiar, it was a viral 2015 meme retweeted over 10 million times, that asked viewers to discern the colour scheme of a particular dress. By and large, individuals saw the dress as either blue and black, or white and gold. If you remember the dress, you’ll no doubt remember arguing about what colour it really was. You may also be familiar with a pair of Vans that hit the scene a few years later in 2018. Much like The Dress, onlookers couldn’t decide on whether these shoes were mint and grey, or pink and white. What do you all see? Leave a comment below! And now, in 2020, we’re faced with another reckoning. Billie Eilish in an Instagram story, talking about The Dress, mentioned that she had an optical illusion of her own. Years ago, I was wearing these shoes, and my dad’s like, “Wow, those shoes are so cool, what are those like, pink and white?” When, according to her, they were clearly mint and white. Billie, thinking that her fans would back her up, pulled out the pair of shoes, and showed them. Much to her chagrin, her fans agreed with her father. Maybe she needs to get her Billie EYE-lish checked. Hahaha goodness. It’s fascinating how thousands of people can look at the exact same object, yet see entirely different things. It’s actually more common for people’s eyes to play tricks on them than it seems. It’s the whole basis of optical illusions. Why don’t we take a look at a few? The first looks a little like this. Look closely at the two squares on each side. They appear to be different colours right? What if I told you that they’re the exact same colour? Since the square on the left is surrounded by a brown background, your brain filters out some of the brown from the square, and it appears more yellow. The same thing is happening on the right, except your brain is filtering out yellow, so the square appears more brown! The next was made by Beau Lotto, the Cross-Piece Illusion! You’ll see that we have two crosses with segments of various colours. Look at the cross piece in the middle there. What colour do you think they are? One looks grey, and the other yellow. However, as we remove the background, we can see that they’re both actually grey! Our last illusion is called the Cube Illusion, also made by Beau Lotto. You’ll see a Rubik’s cube. Notice the center block on the top, and on the side in shadow. The top appears brown, and the bottom appears orange. I’ll bet you can tell where this is going. When we remove all colours except for those two blocks, we can see that they’re actually both brown! So then what’s going on? It all comes down to how our eyes perceive colour. A concept called “colour constancy”. In an article entitled: Colour Vision: Understanding #TheDress, authors Brainard and Hurlbert tell us how colour constancy works to help us see. They note that what we perceive as colour is based on two basic concepts. The reflective properties of any given object, and the light by which it is illuminated. Basically, the wavelengths of light that are either reflected or absorbed by a specific object stay the same, but the light that illuminates it changes over space and time. For example, a white wall lit by incandescent light bulbs will appear slightly yellow. Whereas a white wall lit by outdoor light or fluorescent bulbs will appear slightly blue. Colour constancy is how our brains filter out some of the changes in illumination to keep a white wall white. If our brains didn’t have colour constancy, then our brains would be too preoccupied with every miniscule change in lighting that the actual colours being reflected by a surface would get lost in the noise. For example, the dress changes between blue and black to white and gold, if you artificially darken or brighten the image. Our brains were filtering out either blue light or yellow light, making the image appear one way or another. In the words of researchers Aston and Hurlbert, “the colors in the photograph could be produced by illuminating a blue dress with yellow light or a white dress with blue light” so our brain picks the one that makes the most sense. It’s also possible, they argue, that whether one is more active during the day, or more active at night, can also impact what colour of dress they see. Aka, if you’re up late, you’ll likely work by yellow light, and therefore your brain will filter out more yellow, creating a blue and black dress, and vice versa. The dress was originally blue and black, for the record, however the designers did make a white gold variant and auctioned it off, donating the proceeds to charity. It’s the same sort of thing that’s happening with those mint and grey Vans. If we look closely at the image, specifically at the hand holding the shoes, you can see that the image is quite dark. Bevil Conway, a Neuroscientist with the National Eye Institute, notes that “In that manipulated photograph there is a lot of the turquoise cast over the whole image”, and not only that, but if you look at the hand holding the shoe, you can tell how dark the scene is generally. The image has been manipulated in order to increase the ambiguity of the lighting. Billie Eilish’s Nike Uptempo sneakers act a lot like the illusions shown a moment ago. Our eyes, as we learned earlier, filter out some colour lighting plays on an image. I want to bring everyone’s attention to Billie’s video. The shoes appear pink and white at first, however in a later video, Billie compares another shoe with pink lining on the inside to the Nikes. So you’re gonna sit here and tell me that that and that, is the same as that? Now, they appear mint and white. Oh is it because we look at the pink and it changes the way we see the mint? It’s a good guess, but if you watch it again, you’ll notice that at first Billie was shooting video from inside, and when she compares her Nikes to the other shoe, she’s filming outside. It’s likely that the change from yellow indoor lighting, to bluer outdoor lighting impacted the way that we see the shoes. Wait, so what colour were her shoes really? They were… Mint and white— Billie was right! Literally, put this sh** up to anything else... So it’s the lighting of the picture that changes the way that our eyes understand colour? Exactly! It’s also something to consider that the device that you observe these illusions on can impact your perception, in addition to the camera that takes the picture in the first place. There are lots of times when these kinds of illusions take place, but because of colour constancy, we never notice. It’s like, yeah, I might not see the same blue as you see, but it’s still blue. Without colour constancy, there would be no point to even referring to anything by colour, because no one would ever know if what they’re seeing is the same as everyone else. Our brains, as I’ve said before, are amazing little machines. There’s so much happening without us even being aware, and every day we learn a little more about how it works. Remember that not everything is as it appears. Sometimes, all it takes is a silly dress, or a badly lit pair of shoes to keep us curious. Keep asking questions, and keep digging, my friends. Oh my gosh guys, it’s starting, it’s starting. Chill, we’re streaming. We can literally start it whenever we want. I know I know but I’m just really excited. Queen captures Knight on F6. Remarkable. Borgov couldn’t have seen that coming. Not from somebody so young to the sport. But his rival is really showing what a genetically am— What? Did you try NordVPN? 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