如今的網(wǎng)絡熱詞可謂日新月異,層出不窮。兩個月前,微博熱詞上從滿屏的“DUANG DUANG DUANG”一夜間換成了“藍黑+白金”。據(jù)聞那條裙子的照片是一名21歲的歌手凱特琳·麥克尼爾( Caitlin McNeill)發(fā)布的,她在接受電話采訪時透露,那條裙子拍攝自她朋友的婚禮。有人認為照片里的裙子是“白金”,而有人卻認為是“藍黑”。同一個畫面,甚至是同一個顯示器,反差這么大,到底是你瞎還是我瞎?一時間,“白金黨”與“藍黑黨”兩大陣營在網(wǎng)上炸開了鍋,而各路的解讀看著頭頭是道,其實又讓人霧里看花。本期《達人密碼》中,讓神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)科學的博士比維爾醫(yī)生來為我們解讀其中的奧秘。
Robert Siegel (Host): Let’s get to the dress that’s led to deep disagreements around the globe. Unfortunately, I am not 1)exaggerating. I’ve been hearing it all day in the newsroom, too.
Unidentified Woman #1: It’s white and gold.
Unidentified Woman #2: White and gold.
Unidentified Woman #3: It’s definitely...
Unidentified Man #1: It’s white and gold
Unidentified Woman #3: ...It’s black and blue.
Unidentified Man #2: It’s black and blue.
Unidentified Woman #4: It’s obviously…
Siegel: Yeah, For the record, I see white and gold. A woman posted a photo of a dress,the dress in question, on Tumblr. And she wanted help because she and her friends saw the colors of the dress differently. The dress was an Internet 2)phenomenon, pitting friend against friend, colleague against colleague, family member against family member. Why is it that people see the colors of the dress so differently? And here to settle this debate once and for all, we hope, is Dr. Bevil Conway, professor of 3)neuroscience at Wellesley College. Thanks for joining us.
Bevil Conway: My pleasure.
Siegel: So you’ve seen the picture of the dress. Is it white and gold, as I see it, or black and blue, as others do?
Conway: Well, I represent the third 4)camp. I see it as orange and blue, which I think is probably the most accurate in terms of the representation of,in the digital image. If you look at the colors of each 5)pixel, they actually report as orange and blue.
Siegel: Did you zoom way, way in on this to arrive at that conclusion?
Conway: I—no. When I was contacted 6)initially about this, someone showed me the dress and said, “what color is it? ” And I said it’s orange and blue. And then we did the 7)diagnostics on the image to figure it out. But, of course, that doesn’t explain why so many people see it in so many different ways.
Siegel: Yes. Why is it that one image can be seen so differently? The, you know, I think we all know the names of the colors here. This isn’t a matter of 8)colorblindness, is it? And we just see it differently.
Conway: Yeah. I think that’s exactly right. So it’s got very little to do, if anything, with what’s happening in the eye itself. It’s got to do with how the brain that sits behind the eye is interpreting the signals that hit the 9)retina. And there are, you know, many, many 10)neurons—billions of neurons that are trying to interpret what hits the retina. And that interpretation is required because the 11)stimulus that hits the retina is 12)inherently 13)ambiguous. It could be lots of different things. And because of people’s particular prejudices about what they think they may see and because of the peculiar color combination, which is orange and blue, which sits on what we call the daylight 14)axis. It’s the colors of the naturally occurring 15)luminance. It sets the stage for a very ambiguous situation that some people are gonna interpret in one way and other people are gonna interpret, equally 16)validly actually, in another way.
Siegel: Still, let the record show, orange is—I understand you see it that way, but that one’s off the charts here for us. But...
Conway: (Laughter)
Siegel: ...Would we all see the same colors if we saw the dress in person?
Conway: So if you saw the dress in person, then you would have a lot more information. You could move around the dress. You would get much more information about how the lighting interacted not only with the dress, but with other objects in the environment. And I’ve been told the designer says it’s blue and black.
Siegel: I think I’m on the concluding thought. I still want to say, funny, it doesn’t look 17)bluish.
Conway: (Laughter)
Siegel: Dr. Conway, thank you very much for talking with us about this.
Conway: My absolute pleasure.
羅伯特·西格爾(主持人):讓我們來聊聊引發(fā)全球熱議的這條裙子。很不幸地——我沒有夸張,我在新聞編輯室里也會整天聽到這些討論。
不知名女聲#1:它是白金色。
不知名女聲#2:白金色。
不知名女聲#3:它絕對是……
不知名男聲#1:它是白金色。
不知名女聲#3:……它是藍黑色。
不知名男聲#2:它是藍黑色。
不知名女聲#4:它絕對是……
西格爾:嗯,事先聲明,我看到的是白金色。一名女子在湯博樂(譯者注:湯博樂是一種介于傳統(tǒng)博客和微博之間的全新媒體形態(tài),既注重表達,又注重社交,而且注重個性化設置,成為當前最受年輕人歡迎的社交網(wǎng)站之一)發(fā)布了一條裙子——也就是我們剛才提到的裙子的照片。她希望得到幫助,因為她和朋友們看到這條裙子的顏色是不同的。此后這條裙子在網(wǎng)上引發(fā)熱議,讓朋友之間、同事之間、家人之間變得針鋒相對。那么為什么人們看到這條裙子的顏色會如此的不同呢?這里我們希望,來自韋爾斯利學院神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)科學的教授比維爾·康韋博士能徹底平息這場爭論。謝謝您的參與。
比維爾·康韋:這是我的榮幸。
西格爾:那么您也看到這條裙子的照片了,它到底是像我所看到的,是白金色,還是像別人所看到的藍黑色呢?
康韋:好吧,我代表的是第三陣營的。我看到那條裙子是橘藍色的,我認為這可能是數(shù)字圖像最準確的顯示。如果你去觀察每個像素的顏色,它們事實上是顯示橘藍色。
西格爾:你是用變焦縮放的方式得到這個結論的嗎?
康韋:我——不是。當我起初被問及此事的時候,有人給我看了這條裙子然后問:“這是什么顏色?”我說這是橘藍色。然后我們對圖像作了診斷得出這一結論。但是,當然,這不能解釋為什么那么多人看到不同的顏色。
西格爾:是的。為什么一個圖像能有那么不同的視覺效果?你懂的,我想我們都了解顏色的名稱。這不是色盲的問題,對嗎?我們只是看到不同的顏色。
康韋:嗯。我覺得很正確。所以這與眼睛本身看到了什么沒有太大的關系,而是與眼睛背后的大腦如何解讀刺激視網(wǎng)膜的信號有關。你知道的,有許多神經(jīng)細胞——數(shù)以億計的神經(jīng)細胞在解讀刺激視網(wǎng)膜的信號。而這種解讀是有必要的,因為對視網(wǎng)膜的刺激本身是模糊不清的。它可以是很多不同的事物。因為人們對他們的所看所想有一定的偏見,也由于橘色和藍色這一特殊的顏色組合,而這一組合坐落在我們所說的日光軸上。它是天然的顏色亮度,所以讓成像變得很模糊,讓一些人用一種方式解讀,而其他人事實上同樣會理所當然地用另外一種方式來理解。
西格爾:但是,還是按事實說話,橙色——我理解你看到了這個顏色,但是這個顏色不在我們討論的范圍內(nèi),但是……
康韋:(笑)
西格爾:……如果我們親眼看到這條裙子,會看到相同的顏色嗎?
康韋:那么如果你親眼看到這條裙子,你就會獲得更多的信息。你可以仔細打量這條裙子。你能更多地了解到光是如何與這條裙子,并且與環(huán)境中的其他事物相互作用的。我聽(這條裙子的)的設計師說它是藍黑色的。
西格爾:我認為我得出了結論。我還是想說這條裙子看起來不是藍色,這真有趣。
康韋:(笑)
西格爾:康韋博士,謝謝您和我們討論此事。
康韋:這真的是我的榮幸。