This photo of a dress has caused an internet uproar: Is it blue and black, or white and gold?
這張照片讓網友們吵翻天了，到底是"藍+黑"還是"白+金"?。?/p>

So far, according to Buzzfeed, about three-quarters of respondents see white and gold.
截止目前，Buzzfeed的投票顯示，3/4的人認為這條裙子的顏色是"白+金"。

But why are people seeing such wildly different colors? First off, it’s not monitor settings.
為什么不同的人看到的顏色差別這么大？首先給顯示屏洗脫冤屈吧。

It’s probably not about the cells in your eyes.
與視網膜細胞貌似沒啥關系。

Our retinas have specialized cells called rods, which are used for night vision, and cones, which deal with color. But these cells are probably not the source of the dress dilemma.
視網膜中有視桿細胞，負責夜視，以及視錐細胞，負責顏色。但這些細胞并不能解釋這條詭異的變色裙子。

Cones come in three types: red, blue, and green. And each of us has very different ratios of these types. But the different ratios "don’t seem to have a big impact on our color vision," said Cedar Riener, associate professor of psychology at Randolph-Macon College. "I could have a 5-1 ratio of red to green cones, and you could have 2-1, and we could both have similar color sensitivity."
倫道夫-麥肯學院心理學副教授Cedar Riener解釋說，視錐細胞有三種形式：紅、藍、綠。不同的人眼睛中這三種形式的視錐細胞比率都不盡相同，但是這并不影響我們對顏色的認知。比如我可以有紅：綠=5：1的視錐細胞，你的是2:1，但是我們看到的紅和綠是類似的。

It’s about how your brain is interpreting the light coming into your eyes.
是你的大腦如何解釋進入眼睛的光。

The dress phenomenon, according to neuroscientist Dale Purves of Duke University, "shows how strongly people are wedded to the idea that colors are properties of objects, when they are in fact made up by the brain."
杜克大學神經系統學家Dale Purves說這條詭異的裙子很好的說明了一個問題："人們根深蒂固的堅信顏色是物體本身的屬性，其實它們不過是大腦的解釋罷了"。

OK, but why do different people’s brains interpret the light differently?
好吧，但是為什么每個人的大腦給出的解釋都不一樣呢？

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."
洛克菲勒大學認知神經系統學家John Borghi解釋了我們視覺形成的過程：視覺是一個從上向下的過程，從大腦開始，根據經驗和預期向下過濾信息，直到產生視覺。

Each person brings a different set of experiences and expectations, as well as attention levels and particular eye movements.
每個人的經驗和預期不同，關注程度以及眼球運動也不同。

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.
Borghi打了個比方，你看這條裙子前看了什么可能影響你看到這條裙子的顏色。"如果此前你看到過與這條裙子材質或形狀相似的裙子(或織物)，也可能影響你的視覺。"這叫啟動效應。

Vocabulary
uproar：騷動、嘩然
retina：視網膜
ratio：比例
neuroscientist：神經系統科學家
filter：過濾
phenomenon：現象

（來源：中國日報網雙語新聞 編輯：張默）