Transcripts
Presenter Now, this question presents us with a small problem … even though the meme is all over the internet, we can’t get the rights to show the photograph. Oh, dear …
Sarah
Presenter Well, maybe we can get around it. So, to all our listeners who are at their computers. I’d like you to type ‘the dress’ and ‘blue and black or gold and white?’ into your search engine. Go on. Right, that should do it. Got it? OK, this meme broke records for how quickly it spread, didn’t it?
Sarah
That’s right, yes. It went viral. Millions of people were talking – or arguing – about it all over the world. People get very confused – and sometimes even angry – when they see things differently from other people. In this case, the dress appears to some people, obviously, to be blue and black. To others, equally obviously, it looks white and gold.
Presenter Yes. Very confusing. What Aisha wants to know is: ‘How is that possible?’
Sarah
OK, to explain this, let’s start with some simple illusions and then move onto more complicated ones. After that, we’ll hopefully be able to understand what’s going on with ‘the dress’ a little better.
Presenter Sounds like good plan to me! Sarah
OK, first up, what’s this?
Presenter Well, er … is this a trick question? It’s a big cat. A cheetah?
Sarah Well not quite. Actually, it’s a series of ink splotches very skilfully positioned by an artist to look like a cheetah.
Presenter OK, but you know what I mean. Sarah
Of course I do. And indeed, no-one would disagree with you – this picture IS of a cheetah. But in order to see a cheetah, the viewer has to make sense of what is, in fact, just a series of black patches on a white background.
Presenter They have to, kind of … fill in the gaps. Sarah
Presenter Did it go viral? Sarah
Exactly! Our minds fill in the gaps. We’ll come back to that. OK, next – here’s a famous illusion from the early 20th
century. It was very popular in its time.
Hehe, not quite. Things didn’t go viral in quite the same way before the internet … But as I say, lots of people were very excited by it.
Presenter I don’t see it. What’s the illusion? Sarah Well, this drawing could be seen in two ways. It’s a sophisticated lady with a feather on her hat. But it’s also a much older lady, huddling down into her coat. See? If you blink your eyes, you can see it both ways.
Presenter Ah, OK, I’m with you. So here, it’s about how the viewer interprets the pencil lines?
Sarah
Yes. So, if you look at the line that is the young woman’s jawbone, it’s also part of the old woman’s nose.
Sarah
Presenter Her nostril! And the young woman’s neck is the old woman’s chin.
Sarah
Exactly. And so on. The important thing is this: the way we interpret those lines completely depends on their surroundings. To put that another way: we make meaning from the lines from their context. This is a key idea.
Presenter Interesting … Sarah
Let’s look at a different example. By the addition of a few lines, lines of the same length can be made to look longer or shorter, parallel lines can look like they’re at funny angles to each other, and perfectly formed shapes can be made to look distorted. There are loads and loads of illusions that work on this principle.
Presenter Wee-eeeird! So where are we going next? Sarah Well, to Denmark, actually. Our next illusion is known as Rubin’s vase. It’s named after the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin, who discovered it. When looking at this picture, some people see two faces looking at each other. Others see a vase.
Presenter I can see both! Sarah
Yes, me too. But – crucially – not at the same time. When we look at any two-dimensional image, our brains have to decide what is form and what is background. Usually, we make these decisions based on clues from shadows, movement or colours. Pictures of Rubin’s vase don’t give us any of those clues, so they are ambiguous. That is, they can be interpreted in two ways.
Presenter I see. So without enough clues, our brains have to guess what they’re seeing.
Yes, they make educated guesses. To use your phrase from earlier: they have to ‘fill in the gaps’. And when lots of brains fill in lots of gaps, sometimes they come up with different answers! OK, last one. In this one, we have a picture of an apple on a chessboard.
Presenter Funny place to leave an apple! Sarah
Sarah
Yes, quite. Very unhygienic … anyway, can you see the point of this one?
Presenter Errr … well, it’s something to do with the apple’s shadow.
Yes. And what about the numbered squares, 1 and 2?
Presenter No. I give up. What’s going on? Sarah Well, in this one, the squares 1 and 2 are in fact the same shade of grey! Look!
Presenter Whoa, whoa, whoa … that’s crazy! Sarah
It is! So, after everything we’ve seen and discussed, can you guess why that is?
Presenter So, I guess … because we are used to objects – including fruit – casting shadows, our minds make square number 2 look lighter in contrast to the surrounding squares.
Sarah
Yes! All perception is in relation to things around it. So I think we’re ready, finally, to go back to the dress.
English for the 21st Century • Transcripts 201
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224
