Perceiving your own reality

[Music]

what color is this dress

blue with black glaze or white with gold

lace

those were the two sets of very

different colors most people saw

when this wedding dress was posted by a

lady in scotland in 2015.

when the musicians arrived for the

wedding they reposted the picture and it

got over 4

million tweets blue and black or white

and gold

celebrities from all over the world

chimed in on what colors they saw

soon neuroscientists were commenting and

publishing papers about it

yet despite all this attention there is

no clear answer on why different people

perceive different colors for the same

object

in the same year i attended an event at

the world science festival

where alan alda asked an obvious but

impossible question

what is color he talked about how

different people

may see the same thing differently i was

seven

and captivated i recently conducted an

experiment to test our perceptions of

reality

with another illusion it’s called the

benim’s disk

you can see it here it’s just a spinning

disc

what colors do you see on this disc you

may not see colors to the screen

but when people saw this illusion live

they sell colors ranging from earthy

greens

to bright pinks and everything in

between

when the disc stops look what’s on it it

has no colors

it’s entirely black and white the color

is perceived when looking at the

spinning disc

are called fectioner or imaginary colors

the colors on this disc are subjective

some people see bright colors

while others see pastel shades and some

people see

gray and black blurs and curiously

such imagined perceptions exist not only

for our physical reality but they can

also exist

for a social reality for now continuing

with the black and white disc

why do we see any colors at all even

though this disc has been studied for

over 100 years

scientists still don’t know the exact

answer to this question

i wanted to learn more about these

imaginary colors

would these colors behave like real

colors for example

could i change the way we perceive these

colors

even though they were created entirely

inside this perceiver’s mind

i began to learn why we see what we do

scientists show a considerable amount

of our supposed reality is actually our

perception

our brain starts with what our senses

provide as input our sensations

and then our brain adds to that

interpretation of our input

or our perception our reality emerges

from the connection of sensations with

perceptions

and this connection is influenced by

what our brain is expecting

to see i wondered what it would take for

the brain to change what it perceived

there’s a phenomenon called retinal

fatigue that actually changes

how we see real colors imagine this

you stare at a small red square for

about a minute and then look at a white

paper

what you’re going to see is a green

square that is the exact

same size as the red one but why would

you see

green well there are three types of

color receptors in our eyes

they’re called cones there are those

that are stimulated when you look at red

a second type stimulated by green and a

third type

stimulated by blue when you stare at the

red square the red cones become so

overstimulated

that when you look at the white paper

the green cones temporarily take over

for the tired red ones

even the retinal fatigue has been

studied extensively

with real colors it has never been tried

with imaginary colors

so if it were used with the bantam’s

disk would it change the imaginary

colors perceived by the brain

what i found was that imaginary colors

actually did

behave like real colors when it came to

retinal fatigue

in fact 83 percent of the time there was

a change in the colors perceived

even though i was influencing color

receptors in the eye

which was looking at a black and white

disc their brain was responding

by changing what it was create creating

as our perceived reality

as if the discs were actually made up of

real colors

i found that the perception of a reality

can be so subjective

that it can be entirely made up but more

broadly

i learned that when i asked questions

and had no judgment or expectations

about the answer

my brain could not fill in the narrative

and i could

actually discover something new i

started this work trying to understand

how our brain perceives imaginary colors

through this journey i have realized

that our social judgments

can also be affected by imaginary

perceptions

in fact our brain elaborates and

interprets our reality to fit with

scripts

and roles that we expect and anticipate

our perception is made up of our own

narratives and expectations

if i ask you imagine a scientist

do you think of a woman or a man

research shows

that most people think of a man a few

months ago

my science teacher asked my classmates

and me to draw a scientist

i immediately drew a woman in that role

but that was not the majority view

only four out of 83 kids

drew women that’s under 5

what’s even more interesting about the

experiment is that half of those who

drew women

actually knew the intent of the

experiment and so they purposely drew

women

when i say titles like quantum physicist

surgeon

and mathematician most of us don’t

picture women and girls

we are more likely to think of men and

boys but our brain

is filling in details based on what

we’ve been told to expect

if you look at the data unfortunately

these professions have a gender divide

so our brain anticipates and expects

that the person is more likely to be

male

and fills in that detail in our

perception

what happens when we take this to the

next step to thinking that this gender

divide is real

and it exists because there’s an actual

difference

in the capabilities and capacities

between men

and women what does this mean for the

real inequalities for women and girls in

stem

we have now perpetuated based on a

perceived illusion

typically we ask what something should

be

or how is it this way through my

experiments

and experience i have learned that

perhaps the more important questions are

why does it have to be this way and what

if there were another way

i started my project trying to change

imaginary colors

i found myself changing my imaginary

perceptions of what i can

and cannot do i learned that i can

question and change my own narratives

i want to invite you to come on this

journey with me

to individually question and challenge

the narratives that are pre-filled

for all of us there is no reason

that when i say quantum physicist

surgeon

or mathematician every one of us girls

boys whoever we may be isn’t as likely

to think of

anyone in that role we cannot stop at

role models or even just with talk of

allyship

we have to go beyond the division that

limits our perceptions

of what is possible let me leave you

with this request

let us all disrupt the narratives that

stifle us

and recreate them in ways that not only

make us equal

but let us flourish we can perceive

our own reality thank you

you