Step 1: Jot down your ideas and share with a partner.
In 2015, a viral debate took place over the globe about the color of a dress in a photograph. Some people saw the dress as white and gold, while others saw it as blue and black.
- Look at the photo of the dress. What colors do you see?
- Why do you think so many people around the world perceived the same dress differently? What does the 2015 debate tell us about color and human vision?
Step 2: Read a Times article about a recent study.
Read the New York Times article “Do You See the Same Colors That I Do?” It begins:
After decades of brain research, scientists still aren’t sure whether most people see the same way, more or less — especially with colors.
Is what I call red also red for you? Or could my red be your blue? Or maybe neon pink? If it were possible to project what I see directly into your mind, would the view be the same, or would it instead resemble a crazy-hued Andy Warhol painting?
“That’s an age-old question, isn’t it?” said Andreas Bartels, a professor of visual neuroscience at the University of Tübingen in Germany.
But scientists do have a good understanding of which parts of the brain handle vision. They have even figured out where various vision-processing tasks are performed, like recognizing what is moving, identifying colors and adjusting to different lighting conditions.
Amazingly, it is even possible to deduce what you’re seeing by looking at an M.R.I. scan showing which parts of your brain are lighting up.
“That comes out of the world of science fiction, or one would think, right?” Dr. Bartels said. “It’s amazing that this is possible, but this always has happened in individual brains.”
Step 3: Analyze the study.
1. What was the scientific question that researchers wanted to answer?
2. How did researchers plan and carry out their investigation?
3. The above image was included in the original scientific paper. What do you notice? Why do scientists include images as part of their research?
4. What explanation did researchers construct using the data they collected and interpreted to answer their original question? (Data is the factual information collected during observations, experiments or studies.)
5. What significance does this research have for science, the world or our lives?
6. What is one thing you learned about this study or about how scientists approach their work?
7. How did the article explain the differences in perception of the famous viral dress from 2015? How did the explanation compare to your answer in the warm-up activity? What does the scientific explanation tell us about the “vagaries of human vision”?
8. What further questions do you have about this research and its significance?
Step 4: Work with others to come up with your own scientific investigation.
In this study, researchers tried to better understand people’s perception of color. Collaborate with others to propose another scientific investigation about vision and the nature of color. For example, a scientist might want to investigate color blindness in humans.
- What scientific question might you want to answer?
- Briefly describe how you might design a study using similar techniques mentioned in the article to try to answer that question.
More?
• Science Practice, a new resource aligned with the Science and Engineering Practices for the Next Generation Science Standards, aims to help students better understand how scientists actively gather evidence-based knowledge and solve problems. Learn more about this feature in this introductory post.
• See all the lesson plans in this series.
The post Science Practice | A Study on Color Perception appeared first on New York Times.
