“We are always making decisions about the quantity of light that comes into our retina,” said Cedar Riener, associate professor of psychology at Randolph-Macon College.

　　“进入视网膜的光线有多少，一直以来都是我们自己决定的，”兰道尔夫-麦肯学院心理学副教授凯达瑞纳这样说。

　　This light, called luminance, is always a combination of how much light is shining on an object and how much it reflects off of the object’s surface, he added.

　　这种光线叫做亮度，一直都有两部分组成：物体表面的光线和物体表面反射的光线。

　　让科学家告诉你裙子到底是什么颜色

　　“In the case of the dress, some people are deciding that there is a fair amount of illumination on a blue and black (or less reflective) dress. Other people are deciding that it is less illumination on a white/gold dress (it is in shadow, but more reflective).”

　　“在服装的例子里，有些人认为在蓝黑服装上有相当数量的亮度（反射光线更少）。其他人则认为白色或金色的服装上的亮度更少（服装处于阴影中，反射光线更强）。

　　This is just like the famous Adelson checkerboard optical illusion. In the image below, square A is exactly the same shade as square B, but they look totally different.

　　这个例子和著名的阿德尔森棋盘错觉是一样的。在如下的图像中，方块A和方块B的色度是一样的，但是他们看起来完全不同。

　　Our vision is heavily influenced by so-called “top-down” processing, John Borghi, a cognitive neuroscientist at Rockefeller University, told BuzzFeed News. Top-down processing “begins with the brain and flows down, filtering information through our experience and expectations to produce perceptions.”

　　我们的视觉很大程度上受到“自上而下”信息处理的影响，洛克菲勒大学认知神经科学家约翰波尔基这样告诉BuzzFeed新闻。自上而下信息处理“首先通过大脑，然后向下处理，通过我们的经历和预期过滤信息，从而产生感知。”

　　Each person brings a different set of experiences and expectations, as well as attention levels and particular eye movements.

　　每个人有不同的经历和预期，同样的，每个人注意力集中的水平和特别的眼球运动也都不一样。

　　For example, what you looked at just before you looked at the dress could influence the way your brain perceived it, Borghi added. “It could also be that you’ve seen dresses (or fabric) with the same texture or shape before, which could also affect your perception.” This general phenomenon is called priming.

　　例如，你在看这条裙子之前所看到的事物可能会影响你大脑对裙子感知的方式，波尔基补充说。“也可能，你之前已经看到过同样纹理和形状的裙子或布料，这样也会影响你的感知。”这种常见现象叫做激发效应。

　　Interestingly, scientists don’t know much about individual differences in perception, Riener said.

　　有趣的是，科学家们对个人感知的差异并不是很了解，瑞纳说。

　　“The individual differences tend not to receive as much attention from perceptual researchers, since we focus on how eyes work in general,” he said. “And in general, our eyes work very similarly, since we all live in an environment where the color of the light is generally the same shade of blue.”

　　“自从我们重点关注大体眼睛如何处理信息之后，个体差异并没有受到知觉研究者过多的关注，”他说。“一般来说，我们的眼睛处理信息都非常相似，因为我们都生活在一个环境中，光的颜色是同样色度的蓝色。”