Disagreement and Polarization

Disagreement and Polarization are at all time highs, putting the integrity of the social fabric at risk. In this project, we study the causes of disagreement and polarization on the basis of perceptual principles.

Published Paper / Presentations

• Wallisch, P. (2017). Illumination assumptions account for individual differences in the perceptual interpretation of a profoundly ambiguous stimulus in the color domain:“The dress”. Journal of Vision, 17(4), 5-5.

• Wallisch, P., & Karlovich, M. (2019). Disagreeing about Crocs and socks: Creating profoundly ambiguous color displays. arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.05736.

• Gwilliams, L., & Wallisch, P. (2020). Immediate ambiguity resolution in speech perception based on prior acoustic experience.

Selected Media Coverage

• Slate: Two Years later, we finally know why people saw the dress differently.

• Florida Today: Is Yanny/Laurel debate a sign of a coming civil war?

• Scientific American: Twenty-Eight Shades of Shoes

• Buzzfeed: Where Did The Yanny/Laurel Recording Really Come From?

• YANSS podcast: How a divisive photograph of a perceptually ambiguous dress led two researchers to build the nuclear bomb of cognitive science out of socks and Crocs