First it was ‘the dress’. Now, a new colour dilemma has captured the curiosity of millions worldwide. If you've ever argued with a friend about whether something is blue or green, you're not alone. A recent online experiment titled “Is My Blue Your Blue?” is sparking lively discussions about how humans perceive colour—and whether we’re all seeing the world in the same way.
The brainchild of neuroscientist and AI researcher Dr. Patrick Mineault, this colour-perception test invites users to determine whether a single hue on their screen is more blue or green. The experiment, born out of a domestic debate over a blanket, has since gone viral, attracting over 1.5 million visitors since its launch in August.
“I’m a visual neuroscientist, and my wife, Dr. Marissé Masis-Solano, is an ophthalmologist,” Dr. Mineault explained in an interview with The Guardian. “We have this argument about a blanket in our house. I think it’s unambiguously green, and she thinks it’s unambiguously blue.” What started as a playful dispute turned into a full-fledged scientific experiment.
At its core, the website “ismy.blue” presents users with a single colour, asking them whether they perceive it as blue or green. The test works by progressively altering the hues, ranging between blue and green, until the website determines where the user’s perception falls on the colour spectrum.
“Colors are often represented in HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) colour space,” Mineault explained to the Daily Mail. “Hue 120 is green, and hue 240 is blue. The test focuses on blue-green hues between 150 and 210.” Interestingly, early experiments show that many people tend to categorize colours around hue 175—turquoise—as blue, even though the official boundary between blue and green is at hue 180.
The results have shown that perceptions vary widely, but the takeaway is that there’s no right or wrong answer.
However, the scientist is quick to reassure anyone concerned about falling outside the norm: “Getting outlier results doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your vision. It might mean you have an idiosyncratic way of naming colors, or that your monitor and lighting are unusual,” he added.
Factors such as the type of device, the age of the screen, ambient lighting, and even the time of day can all influence colour perception. As for the blanket that started it all, Dr. Mineault says the debate between him and his wife is far from over. “We’ve taken the test a bunch of times. As soon as there’s a little green in there, I call it green,” he shared with amusement. But his wife? “She still sees blue.”
A notorious debate over the colour of a dress, whether it was black and blue or white and gold, had sparked a global frenzy in 2015. Since then, many such tests such as 'Yanny' or 'Laurel' have on regular intervals interested people across the world.
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