title: The brain's dress code: How The Dress allows to decode the neuronal pathway of an optical illusion.
abstract: Optical illusions have broadened our understanding of the brain's role in visual perception. A modern day optical illusion emerged from a posted photo of a striped dress, which some perceived as white and gold and others as blue and black. Here we show, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that those who perceive The Dress as white/gold have higher activation in response to the image of The Dress in brain regions critically involved in higher cognition (frontal and parietal brain areas). These results are consistent with theories of top-down modulation and present a neural signature associated with the differences in perceiving The Dress as white/gold or blue/black. Furthermore the results support recent psychophysiological data on this phenomenon and provide a fundamental building block to study interindividual differences in visual processing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Lara
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schlaffke
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Golisch
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany. Electronic address: lauren.haag@rub.de.
authors.forename: Lauren M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Haag
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Melanie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lenz
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Heba
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lissek
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schmidt-Wilcke
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurophysiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Ulf T
authors.initials: UT
authors.lastname: Eysel
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tegenthoff
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009903:Optical Illusions / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Colour processing; Optical illusion; Retinex Theory; The Dress; Top–down modulation