The fact that you’re seeing an illusion and that your eyes may (like some) or may not adjust to it eventually so that you’ll see the “white and gold” one black and blue like it really is.
No, seriously. Now I haven’t been following this story closely at all but the photos haven’t changed one iota for me since I first glanced at them. I’m willing to accept an explanation of differing interpretations of colors but I don’t see it one bit.
Just to make sure, do you know that the dress in the picture is actually blue and black? (I ask just because of the way you phrased it–“it’s a pale blue and gold dress”. Taken literally, that sentence is false, but I’m not sure you meant it literally.)
I always see the whole dress as white and gold. But if I use my fist to make a pinhole, and look at a portion of the dress through that, then it’s clearly dark blue and black. When I gradually enlarge the pinhole, at some point the dress flips back to white and gold.
I first saw it as white and gold, on my cell phone, in a dark bedroom. I saw that it was tinted a light blue which i considered shadowing. I then read the explanations, and on tv I saw it as blue black. Over the last day I have struggled to see it as white/gold again. Various attempts with lighting, screen etc did not change blue black.
Then I looked at http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/us/blue-black-white-gold-dress/ on CNN and saw the three versions of dress. Then I could not stop seeing white and gold again. My son and I have been playing with laptops and iPads and lighting and screen tilt and mostly seeing black and blue, with an occasional white/gold.
But that’s exactly what the controversy is: many folks, you included, see the dress in exactly one way and can’t possibly see how anyone sees it differently. This wouldn’t be controversial (that’s how we see most things), except that there are multiple incompatible and almost diametrically opposed ways of seeing the dress, and the folks like me who see it as black and blue are amazed that people see it another way. (Well, I was at first; on Friday, for about two minutes, it looked white and gold to me, but then it went back to looking blue and black).
The whole thing strikes me as an excellent analogy for partisanship, how two people can look at exactly the same set of facts and come to completely opposite conclusions, each side believing their conclusion is so obvious that they suspect their opponents are liars.
double post
My first experience was very light blue and perhaps mud/mustard/bronze. But the NY Times photo made the blue a lot darker, but the brownish sections remained fairly static.
I’ll try retyping my above rather incoherent post into something much more streamlined, since my conclusion about all of this didn’t get any responses…
Is it possible that the two camps simply have had their minds
A. [Gold & Light Blue/White] assume that the model is underneath some sort of shade, unlike the background objects, while
B. [Black and Dark Blue] assume that the model is in bright sunshine, like the background objects?
I am firmly in camp A-it seemed obvious to me that the model was in the shade, until someone said that she was actually standing in the bright sunshine-didn’t change my perception however.
So, if you perceive it the other way, are you then assuming (consciously or no) that she is indeed standing directly in the sun?
Exactly my experience.
Nope. It’s exactly the same, no matter how I view it. The only time the pics look different is when I’m seeing different pictures.
If we are just reporting what we are seeing, then I see a black and blue dress there. However, I saw a light-blue and dark-gold/brown dress in the original picture.
Ok, this had changed the color to match the real-life colors of the dress. So what? It’s been established that it’s not simply a monitor-setting or quality issue, right?
Heh. None of those images look dark blue and black, or even blue and black. That third pic looks darker but still relatively light blue and dark brown/goldish.
This has been my experience too. This is what I don’t get. The colors on the screen have been shown to be more or less mustard-yellow/gold and light-ish blue. Right?? Isn’t that what posters such as pulykamell have demonstrated?
I agree, it sounds like you’ve flipped. 
The colors of those images have been set in fucking stone for me. 
I’ve been looking at these damn images for way too long now and I’ve yet to experience the “magic”. I’m still seeing the exact same colors I did when I first laid eyes on the image. (other than when I tilted my monitor)
Right, I’m reporting what my eyes are telling me: it’s a pale blue and gold dress. I understand the actual colors of the dress aren’t what I’m seeing on my screen.
I’ve had a chance to read through all this thread and go thru the various links and articles. I’ve read all the explanations and I’m still confused. I’m not saying any one particular way of seeing this is “correct” over another, I’m just confused as to how it’s broken down so diametrically different. And yes, I’ve read all the scientific links explaining it. I’m still scratching my head at seeing black, for instance.
The blue has now gone back to being very light.
See, to me, the colors in the picture are medium-blue and mustard green. But I interpret that as what happens when you take a picture of a blue and black dress, and this interpretation is so innate that it’s very difficult for me to see the dress as anything but black and blue.
FWIW I don’t think this is due to any special familiarity with photography. First, I’m an extremely amateurish photographer and have no training or technique or background knowledge. More importantly, when I asked my kindergarten daughter, and a roomful of third graders, all of them identified the dress as black and blue.
You guys won’t believe me, but now the dress is talking to me!
This is a fascinating comment to me. I’ve never experienced it. When I see an animal or a color, I pretty much always know what it is…but is it a common “thing”?
That means you’re a naturally generous person, a night owl, have sudden bursts of artistic creativity, and shouldn’t eat clam chowder this month.
It was a serious question. Do all the pictures on the NYT page look the same to you?
And even in the three stripey graphics, I still see the darkest one as dark gold and light blue, not black and deep royal blue.
Light blue and dark gold. Nothing even resembling black or white. And it never changes or speaks to me.
Have you calibrated your monitor?
Quick! Ask him about his color!
Only ever happened to me once. I was at my mother-in-law’s house, and she wanted me to identify the baby hummingbirds that were feeding at her petunias. So I took her binoculars and looked at the little birds—
–and saw they had two extra pairs of legs.
For one brief, eternal moment, the universe started to crumble, cracks appeared in the sky, the land fell away beneath my feet. And then I readjusted and realized they weren’t birds but insects. And that’s how I learned about hummingbird moths.
Ok, so here’s the rub: do you actually SEE dark blue and black, or do you KNOW that it actually is dark blue and black, despite actually being light blue and gold? “Yeah yeah it looks light blue and gold, but it actually is dark blue and black, based on my knowledge about lighting and photography and etc.”
In other words, raw perception, or intellectual understanding?
Which raises the philosophical question as to whether those two processes truly be separated apart…