The mystery of the little blue dress becomes a little clearer. German researchers have discovered the areas of the brain responsible for this optical illusion.
Black and blue or white and gold? The famous debate which shook the web and divided the world at the start of the year is far from over. German researchers have taken up the case of the little blue dress (its true color) and found that people who see it white and gold have more active areas of the brain. These amazing conclusions were published in the journal Cortex.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), scientists at Ruhr University in Bochum (Germany) recorded participants’ brain activity when they looked at a photo of the dress. They then noticed that the volunteers who saw the white and gold coat exhibit more intense brain activity than the others, especially in the frontal and parietal areas of the brain.
Better understand optical illusions
The frontal regions of the brain are involved in higher cognitive functions such as decision making or reasoning while the parietal regions are used to process visual information.
For researchers, the phenomenon of the blue dress provides a unique opportunity to study optical illusions. Thanks to her, scientists have been able to identify the areas responsible for these phenomena and shed more light on the mystery of this famous dress which has undoubtedly not finished making people talk about it.
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