eli5: How come our eyes immediately think the Scottish flag as white stripes instead of blue triangles? How come this occurs for some images and for others it doesn’t (like the flag of england?)

Question

[Click here to see the flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Scotland#/media/File:Flag_of_Scotland.svg)

In: 63

Answer 1

It is designed that way – the white is a saltire which is a cross (as in yes a crucifixion symbol) on a blue field. Our eyes are accustomed to seeing the blue sky or blue seas as background.

This doesn’t work as well with the Union Jack (which is an amalgamation of the St George’s cross for England, St Andrew’s saltire for Scotland and St Patrick’s saltire for Ireland) because the blue bits are crowded out – in absence of other information our brain would assume the dominant periphery color to be background.