The dress and eye color

[TheLandsBeyond]

So in case you haven't seen the picture of the dress, here it is:

So basically, I'm wondering if there's any correlation between the color people perceive this dress to be and their eye color.

[WhenSummersGone]

I have dark blue eyes, and the dress looks black and blue or black and violet.

[kelico]

Interesting thought! I have green eyes, and I see it as white and gold 99% of the time lol. But at a certain angle, and when I close one eye...then it's blue and black!

[Guest]

*Head-desks*

How we see the image has nothing to do with eye colour. There's also nothing magical about it. How we see the image depends on: Your colour vision, your visual perception (brain), your monitor (visual display unit) and your computer's configuration and perhaps the angle that you're looking at the monitor.

By the way, you've left out grey eyes and a few others.

http://www.asexuality.org/en/topic/57738-post-something-totally-random/?p=1061114136

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/science-one-agrees-color-dress/

[Prairie]

It's a bluish color, fairly light.

[Scottthespy]

*Head-desks*

How we see the image has nothing to do with eye colour. There's also nothing magical about it. How we see the image depends on: Your colour vision, your visual perception (brain), your monitor (visual display unit) and your computer's configuration and perhaps the angle that you're looking at the monitor.

By the way, you've left out grey eyes and a few others.

While I agree with you, the op does say correlation, not causation. There are a lot of things that science can see a correlation, or relationship, in, without one necessarily causing or even actually effecting the other. Its sciences way of saying 'this is a hell of a coincidence, but the data is there'.

[Shockwave]

I have light green eyes and see the dress as blue and brown.

[Iggy]

My eyes are light blue. I answered the poll before looking at the picture you included. Every other photo I've seen the dress looked violet and black, so thats what put in the poll, but when I looked at the copy of the photo you included it's pale blue and gold.

I saw a guy this morning on TV who is supposed to be an expert explaining about how individual colour perception is and differences in monitors, as well as lighting and the composition of the photo. He said when you put all this together it is obvious the dress is really white and gold. But then later I read that the person who took the photo said it was blue and black.

[Asexy Void]

My eyes are dark brown, and the dress looks white and gold in every picture I see of it. (Except for that one that tried to "debunk" the debate, that one looked blue and black. But the sleeves were completely different on both dresses. XD)

[My alias]

That dress is white and gold ive had multiple people show it to me and i can't tell if people actually see it in different colors or if it is a prank of some sort. I guess this clarifies that this is legit question! but yea i see gold and white :o

[Valja]

My eyes are brown, not too dark, not too light and I can't see it other than white and gold. My roommate has brown eyes too and sees it the way I do too. I don't understand how others can see other colors.

[Grumpy Alien]

I have blue eyes but they look kind of green or grey, depending on lighting and whatnot. I only see blue and black.

[Rwkropf]

Ok, I'm going to say it again. The white balancing is off and if that is corrected, the dress is obviously blue and black.

[deltaX]

I see it as blue and black, and my eyes are light brown.

Personally, I doubt there's any correlation. I've been researching a bit because I was curious, and apparently it has to do with the way your brain perceives the picture and the lighting.

[Scottthespy]

And here's my personal 'how we think of color' explanation of the divergence of perception. The colors COULD be either. The photo gives us enough information to suggest one of two situations: Very bright light that washes out the color, which is supported by the way the background is overexposed, or the dress itself being held in front of the light source, blocking it, and thus being in deep shadow.

Bright white that goes into deep shadow doesn't turn grey, it turns a cool, paleish blue. Gold that doesn't have light on it to show the gleam just looks muddy yellowish brown. The dress, if considered in a position of heavy shadows, fits in with what we know gold and white would look like.

Bright, cobalt blue that gets washed out by intense lighting looks paler, robins egg, but a bit dusty because of the over exposure. Black semi translucent fabrics with a touch of shine, like modern synthetic laces, will catch the light and sort of brown out, loosing their intensity and looking a dull brownish hue, tinged with whatever color the light source is. In the case of most store lights, a bit yellowish.

What color you see seems to depend on whether you're assuming its in heavy shadow or intense light. For those assuming shadow, who can only see shaded white, look at the very edge of the hip of the dress, where a highlight hits it. Its still very blue, not white. Look at the left side of the solid black/gold panel at the neck area...see how the deeper shaded part goes black instead of darker brown?

For those who see black and blue and can NOT figure out where any one is picking up gold, look at the right half of the solid panel at the neck, the yellowish highlighting where the light source hits it, and look at the first thin line of lace after the thick belt of it that goes around the waist. That first thin line has twinges of what look like blurry, minor reflections, adding to the 'sparkely gold' idea. Its not a metallic gold we're thinking of in this case...more of the shade of gold that antique looking bronze door handles get, or what you get when you get 'gold' colored leather. A sort of 'yellowy brown with a sheen to it'.

[Vivaldi Ives]

My eyes/brain see the dress as white and gold, but in a shadow, so that the white (or other light neutral color) appears to be light blue. So I can see how the lighter part of the dress could be perceived as any of a number of colors. However, I cannot see the darker fabric as being black. I've read several places that the dress is actually blue and black, but I am just not seeing the black. However, I understand if the camera somehow messed up the colors in the photo; still, my brain reads it as a light neutral color with accents of gold/brownish color.

[Prairie]

And again, people's monitors vary in color calibration/white point. That contributes to the look before it even reaches one's eyeballs.

[Eva]

When I tilt my laptop screen so that I see it from above, the dress is white and beige. When I tilt the screen so that I see it from below, the dress is blue and brown. But now it gets complicated: When I looked at this white screen while I was typing the previous two sentences, then checked the dress again, it was generally more blue. Staring at white and then looking at the dress a second time made the dress look more blue than it did the first time.

My eyes are brown.

Oh, and just to spoil the fun, here's an accurate photograph of the dress:

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/RV-AP733_DRESS_M_20150227173151.jpg

[Barylambda]

I got into such an argument over this at work. At first, I saw blue and gold. Then, it shifted to blue and black. But, our perception of color is subjective.

[drjohnhwatson]

People talking about contrast and stuff is so frustrating because I've done high contrast, low contrast, and varying in-between. I've looked on my phone, and my computer, and even my boss's wife's phone when we were all discussing (and then arguing) about it at work. I've tilted the screen back and forth, I've taken my glasses off, and regardless: it's always white and gold for me.

A co-worker who saw it as blue and black said that maybe he's colour blind and I was like "no" and he's like "EXPLAIN WHY WE ALL SEE IT DIFFERENTLY" and boss's wife has it change colours on her and I don't get it. First co-worker today told me maybe it is a "left-brain/right-brain" thing which annoyed me because I was like "I know it's not that" because we're both artistic and not logic-based.

As it stands, I think that the original poster (I think it was her) on Tumblr mentioned that, you know, she saw the dress in person and put up the picture and in real life it looks blue and black but when she looks at the picture, all she sees is gold and white, so there's that.

OH YEAH: my friend also angrily sent me a thing whenever she was arguing with me on Twitter over what I see (how you can argue with someone over what they see, I don't know) about how science proves (OKEY DOKEY) that people who see white and gold have bad retinas. So according to that article literally about half the people who have looked at that have bad retinas, which seems statistically improbable, if not impossible.

.

[Sage Raven Domino]

The dress's perception of my eye colour changes between green and lighter blue. That's probably because the dress is white and gold.

According to the Wikipedia:

In humans, the pigmentation of the iris varies from light brown to black, depending on the concentration of melanin in the iris pigment epithelium (located on the back of the iris), the melanin content within the iris stroma (located at the front of the iris), and the cellular density of the stroma. The appearance of blue and green, as well as hazel eyes, results from the Rayleigh scattering of light in the stroma, a phenomenon similar to that which accounts for the blueness of the sky. Neither blue nor green pigments are ever present in the human iris or ocular fluid. Eye color is thus an instance of structural color and varies depending on the lighting conditions, especially for lighter-colored eyes.

Hence the conundrum is dual: the perception of my eye colour 'depends' on the lighting as well as the perception of the colour of the dress.

[LaMaestra]

My eye colour/color isn't listed!

[Syphon]

I perceive the dress as black and blue.

I have blue eyes.

The dress has never changed colors for me.

[FreyLokey]

I perceive the dress as black and blue.

I have blue eyes.

The dress has never changed colors for me.

Same here.

[Xavy]

doesn't seem to be co-related

[WinterM]

I agree with some of the points made above, but I want to additionally point out that we wouldn't be able to identify any correlation without information about AVEN's (or the general population's) distribution of eye colors.

[brightberry]

I doubt that there's any correlation (or for that matter, causation) between the two. It would be really strange if there were, however. I think that if there's any correlation like that, it's probably related to your sex (as they see color slightly differently)

[Skycaptain]

Light brown eyes. I see the dress as gold and light blue

[RK800]

My eyes are blue and green (bi-colored eyes, yay) and the dress, if I look at the screen straight on looks like a grayish-white and gold and using gimp to check the colors confirms this.

The colors are browns, blue-grays, grays, yellows and whites. The picture was probably edited in some way or the camera was terrible.

If you play around with the contrast you get this:

[WinterM]

My eyes are blue and green (bi-colored eyes, yay) and the dress, if I look at the screen straight on looks like a grayish-white and gold and using gimp to check the colors confirms this.

The colors are browns, blue-grays, grays, yellows and whites. The picture was probably edited in some way or the camera was terrible.

If you play around with the contrast you get this:

The dress got an absurd amount of coverage when it came out, so much of this work has been done. While the majority of people see it as white-gold, you can find at least one other picture of the dress in which it's clearly blue and black, and the store entry for the dress which also labels it such.

As far as I know, however, there are only a few tentative theories about why this is such a compelling optical illusion. If anyone knows more, I'd be interested in reading it.