Just quoting what I said elsewhere about this..:
I suppose I can see why this could catch on and cause debate, since at first glance when I scrolled past this on another site I thought it was white and gold and had to so a double take to see how people were saying it was black and blue, now I can see how people can see it either way... But seriously, have people never seen stuff like this before:
Or perhaps a better example in this case:
The square in the middle of each face doesn't look the same colour at first glance (at least to most people), but it is. We see one as brighter / darker because what's around it makes us percieve one as in the shadow and one as in the light.
For that dress picture, obviously the actual colours in the picture are not literally the bold black and blue of the actual dress, or the bright white and gold that it seems many people thought it actually was (you can see that if you try comparing the light bits with the pure white or the dark bits with the pure black on your computer). Taken out of context the colours are probably more a pale washed-out blue and a gold brownish diarrhea colour.
But I think my eye's original interpretation was that it was a crappy picture of a whitenand gold dress with poor lighting leaving the front (the side we can see) in shadow with bright light coming from behind. But in actual fact, it's a crappy picture of a blue and black dress with bright light coming from in front and / or high brightness settings.
I don't think that it's to do with whether you have "better" or "worse" eyesight, my guess is that the way your brain interprets the lighting (and hence what colour it sees the actual dress as) has to do with the screen you are looking at it on, its surroundings on the page or your surroundings in real life, and let's face it some random chance, considering the way lots of people claim to see it one way then the other each time they see the image.
I know the standard internet culture is more "OMGG is this real life?! Halp im scarred!" but I'm surprised I haven't seen more reasonable reactions (not talking about this thread, just in the general cesspool of the intetnet) after the initial WTF that might occur, like when people see the optical illusion posted above.
