The Dress

[Vyk]

Its funny that most of the people I know who see white and gold are female. I wonder if that sorta has something to do with it. But I watched the videos explaining how people see white and gold as a top-down processing in their head

I see blue and black, personally. And I've tried to make my brain think otherwise. I know people have switched back and forth, but for some reason I can't

And my first exposure to this was some random facebook friend making a post about how they can't change from seeing white and gold (and it was a female)

I don't find it dumb. It's interesting how much it blew up. But it's a curiosity. It was worth exploring. Most people learned something at least

[Shlup]

The gender breakdown probably has something to do with males traditionally being the hunters, and so needing better night vision. I wonder how it would break down by ancestral geographical origin... :o

[Shiny]

Okay, I'll bite. This isn't even subjective. The dress is objectively black and blue. Your monitor is either trout, or you have the exposure/brightness up too high. Calibrate your monitor. Now can I close this?

You realize that's not actually possible on pretty much any phone I've ever used right? Not natively anyway. So drop the tude thanks.

You realize when I said calibrate monitor I was talking about computer monitor right? I guess not. Colors are different on every monitor, but my settings have been calibrated for a while to have true RGB and CMYK levels. Even on my phone that doesn't have the brightness up, still the same. You people are silly.

The pic that looks pale blue and gold is photoshopped to look lighter. That is not even the original photo. It seems someone has taken it upon themselves to put two separate photos -- one being lighter than the other. This either a troll or people have both smurfed up eyes and/or smurfed up monitors.

[Spuuky]

Some (admittedly haphazard-looking) analyses of social media that I saw indicated that men are slightly more likely than average to see blue/black, and women slightly more likely to see white/gold; and that young people are MUCH more likely to see blue/black and old people are much more like to see white/gold.

[Shauna]

This either a troll or people have both smurfed up eyes and/or smurfed up monitors.

Matt and I looked at the same picture on the same monitor and saw the two different colours. It's definitely an individual difference in eye capabilities, which Shlup has posted a nice breakdown of.

[Ceiladora]

Here's the answer! It's all rainbow colours! Who the smurf knows by now, huh?

Thanks, optical imagination.

[Agent Proto]

I made a new contribution to this debate by adding fuel to the fire... I meant by fan art!

(SPOILER)

[Slothy]

You realize when I said calibrate monitor I was talking about computer monitor right? I guess not.

Of course I realized you meant monitor because I'm not a moron. But you seem completely unaware that a great many people also surf on, and viewed this pic on their phones.

You also seem completely unaware, despite the discussion earlier in the thread, that the phenomenon is not related to monitor quality and settings but the way people actually process the images. So my original statement stands: as far as your monitor elitism goes you can drop the tude.

For the record, I've seen the picture today alone on three completely different phones and two completely different monitors, one of which being my own on my desktop (and I'll be damned if that needs to be calibrated thanks). The colours in the pic look the exact same on all of them to me. If you actually think the calibration is so far off on all of those devices that I see it as distinctly white and gold instead of a very different shade of blue and black, but all of them also look essentially like the same colors and shade allowing for differences in brightness etc, then you've lost your mind.

[Ceiladora]

Okay, it's official; this dress colour thing is still tormenting the smurf out of me.

It's brown and periwinkle. There, I've made my verdict. Have now seen the different results iphone vs computer screen, and that's what I'm gonna stamp it as.

[Pike]

My eyesight is terrible so none of this surprises me really.

[Shiny]

You realize when I said calibrate monitor I was talking about computer monitor right? I guess not.

Of course I realized you meant monitor because I'm not a moron. But you seem completely unaware that a great many people also surf on, and viewed this pic on their phones.

You also seem completely unaware, despite the discussion earlier in the thread, that the phenomenon is not related to monitor quality and settings but the way people actually process the images. So my original statement stands: as far as your monitor elitism goes you can drop the tude.

For the record, I've seen the picture today alone on three completely different phones and two completely different monitors, one of which being my own on my desktop (and I'll be damned if that needs to be calibrated thanks). The colours in the pic look the exact same on all of them to me. If you actually think the calibration is so far off on all of those devices that I see it as distinctly white and gold instead of a very different shade of blue and black, but all of them also look essentially like the same colors and shade allowing for differences in brightness etc, then you've lost your mind.

You really don't read. I said brightness/exposure for phone which does make a difference unless you are completely color blind, but then you'd have to basically be a canine.

If I increase the brightness on my phone, the colors do change slightly so that it actually appears that the black on the dress is brown and the blue is a pale blue, but then none of the colors on my phone look right to me. I have unfortunately seen it on a few different monitors (correctly calibrated) and it all looks the same to me. But seeing as how two separate people can look at the same monitor and get two different results apparently then I agree that it probably has more to do with people's eyes being smurfed up and not so much the monitors.

However, since colors themselves constantly change in lighting, monitor settings do matter as does whatever surrounding light we have around us. Hell, my face changes colors in certain lighting so I'm not surprised if this dress does too. But I have and can only see two colors regardless of that which is why I think this is a troll or people really need to stop staring in to the sun. And no one is getting a "' 'tude" but you since you feel it's important to note that anyone is getting one and use a immature smiley.

[Raistlin]

I see white and gold, but at this point the only thing I care about is the memes.

dress1.jpg

dress2.jpg

dress3.jpg

The good: Works equally well as formal or business casual attire.

The bad: Carves a crooked path through perceptual reality and leaves behind it a wake of confusion and existential crises. Also unforgiving on the hips.

[escobert]

The clearest explanation I've found:

There was a Dr. on NPR yesterday that said it has nothing to do with cones or rods but how your brains processes the information.

[Shlup]

But cones and rods have to do with how your brain processes information... They're connected.

Today my 12-year-old brother was wearing black shoes and blue jeans and was like "Do you like my black and blue outfit? Hahaha, see what I did there?" and I was like "You meant to say white and gold," and then he was sad that he screwed it up. Ha.

[Fox]

Hey everyone. Scishow has some answers!

For the record, I see it as white and gold. But it would seem that my eyes are deceiving me!