The Internet officially broke on Thursday night thanks to a dress that had defied the classification of color. Is it white and gold or is it black and blue?
It all started when a woman took to Tumblr the day before to ask a seemingly normal question: what color is this dress? The woman
says when she saw a photo of the dress once, it was blue and black (she
even posted a photo of the dress being worn at a wedding. In that image, it appears to be blue and black) but when she looked at it again, the dress was gold and white.
This is about the point where the Internet broke.
The image appears white and
gold to some and blue and black to others. Probably eye, light, mind
tricks.
Scientists explain the confusion below:
“I’ve
studied individual differences in color vision for 30 years, and this
is one of the biggest individual differences I’ve ever seen.” Jay Neitz,
a color-vision researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, told Wired.
However, the actual physiology of your eye might come into play with
how you perceive the dress. According to Neitz, an individual’s lens,
which is part of the eyeball, changes over the course of one’s lifespan.
Individuals are less sensitive to blue light when they are older. Which
could explain why older netizens are seeing white and gold. But, in the
absence of hard-core data relating to age and perceptions regarding the
dress, this theory cannot be proved yet.
At the same time, the way the dress is captured on camera could also
be playing a significant role in this debate. According to Science
Daily, humans are blessed with something called color constancy, which
means that while color should be easily identifiable whether you’re in
bright or dull lighting, things can change if the lighting is colored.
“The wavelength composition of the light reflected from an object
changes considerably in different conditions of illumination.
Nevertheless, the color of the object remains the same,” writes Science Daily.
So, because the photo is taken in lighting with a blue hue, it may be
causing the blues in the dress to reflect a white color. And while the
dress may in fact be blue and black, the lighting does, for some
viewers, make it appear to be white and gold.
However, experts agree that the only individuals who can accurately identify “the dress” are those who see it in person.
“Anyone who has ever worked in color management knows that a digital
image is subject to many variables, including screen brightness and
contrast, color calibration and ICC profile, the type of screen material
and it’s corresponding lighting method, as well as the ambient light
present,” says Matthew Sexton, a web designer of nearly 10-years
experience, who formerly worked in TIME’s international production
department.
“If you’re viewing it on a screen … it’s both people!”