The great dress debate
Thursday, Feb. 26, a Tumblr post about a dress went crazy viral with one question: is it blue with black lace or white with gold lace?
The post flooded social media platforms, sparking debates with strong opinions between those who saw blue/black and those who saw white/gold. Even celebrities joined in on the quest for the truth. It seemed that it was about an equal division, with about half seeing each color combination.
Fifty UVU students were also divided, in a surprising way. 22 saw blue and black, 22 saw white and gold with six who saw both.
So how does this interesting phenomenon work? Wired explained it with super technical terms from a couple neuroscientists.
Basically, our eyes take in the all of the information that we see, then our brains filter out the unnecessary information. The lighting conditions are compensated for in the filtering process, but sometimes people’s brains interpret these colors differently.
Hence, people saw the dress differently. And people went crazy over it.
What was the true color of the dress you may ask? Blue and black according to the manufacturer, whose sales on the item went up by about 300 percent in a day.
What color combination did you see? Let us know in the comments.
Amanda is a senior studying journalism with a minor in digital media. She loves writing lifestyle and enjoys being a part of the UVU Review staff to be able to prepare for when she graduates in 2015. Follow her on Twitter @HollmanAmanda.