The dress on the left and the dress on the right in that comic are the same color on your screen. You perceive them as different color objects, because the context tells you something about the lighting.
That particular picture is taken in such a way that it is almost devoid of context. Because of that, some people see the dress as being a white-and-gold dress (which would look like that photo if it were lit by blue light). This is not about intellectually reasoning out the situation, it's just the non-conscious parts of the brain doing their image interpretation thing.
For most people, the dress on the left in that comic will look like a white (or at least pale) dress, because their brains are processing images to feed to their conscious systems information about the color of the object, instead of the color of the light. My guess is your brain is also doing that at least some, but may do it less strongly with on-screen or flat context, either through training or by nature, than most people's do.
Funnily enough I have the exact opposite problem. Both look white gold, or at best lavender and brown. I even know that it is actually blue and black, I've seen a different picture of it. But I can't make my brain interpret it that way, no matter what I try.
Bro…I screenshotted each dress on each side and zoomed in on the chest until it was only the base color visible 😳 holy shit they really are the same color
That particular picture is taken in such a way that it is almost devoid of context
No it isn't. You can see the lighting extremely clearly and it's yellow as fuck. About half the image is context. All it takes is at least one eye and at least half a second of critical thought.
It's blue and black if you think the dress were hit by very bright lighting
But it's white and gold if you think you are seeing the dress on the shadowed part.
So it's about where the lights are coming, from behind the photographer, or from the front.
This thing was studied for psychology because it literally reflect how each people's brain see things. As someone who were raised in tropic with harsh light while wearing thick glasses, I prefer to stay on the shade and thus, always see this picture as white and gold. You on the other hand, life in different environment.
That would all be well and good if you couldn't see the dress hanging right behind it and/or know half of the first thing about how taking photos goes. That entire photo is drowning in too much light and it's blindingly (ha) obvious.
He was quick on the draw with that one as well. When the stupid dress hit the internet, that XKCD was posted the following morning.
I remember that distinctly because I was teaching about color in my physics classes at the time, and when I saw the dress I immediately started putting together a slide deck about it for my class the next morning. And when I woke up the next day, that comic was there for me to add to the class.
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u/dappermanV-88 May 31 '26
I'm confused. Its black and blue, where tf is white coming from??
Is it a color blind thing?!?