In 2015, one dress became viral. The photograph of a dress became viral in social media as viewers of the image disagreed whether the dress depicted was colored black and blue, or white and gold.

The viral phenomenon raised questions regarding the differences in human color perception. Interestingly, the topic had been a subject of ongoing scientific investigations into neuroscience and vision science.

But is the dress black and blue, or white and gold?

(Photo : Asap Science/ screen grabbed from AsapScience Youtube Channel)

Why the Dress Became Viral

The dress phenomenon started with a washed-out color photograph of a dress that was posted on the social networking site Facebook. 

The dress attained a viral status when in just a week, more than ten million tweets had mentioned the dress, using hashtags such as #thedress, #whiteandgold, and #blackandblue. 

People are arguing in the social media whether the dress is colored black and blue or white and gold.

Eventually, the dress was confirmed to be colored black and blue, however the image sparked so much online discussion of different users' perceptions of the color of the dress. 

The viral status of the dress prompted the members of the scientific community to begin investigating the photograph for new insights into human color vision.

The controversial dress was identified as a product of the retailer Roman Originals. As a result of the incident, the retailer experienced a major increase in sales of the dress. 

Eventually, as part of a charity campaign, the retailer produced a version of the dress in white and gold.

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The Scientific Explanation Behind the Dress

If the dress is black and blue, why are some people seeing it in white and gold? Here's the explanation.

According to the Business Insider, there's a layer of tissue at the back of the eye, which is called a retina. It contains cells called photoreceptors.

"The photoreceptors convert light rays into nerve signals, which are then processed by nerve cells in the inner retina, sent to the brain, and translated as images," as per the Business Insider.

There are two types of photoreceptor cells, the rods and cones. Responsible for peripheral and night vision are the rods, which also detect brightness and shades of gray. On the other hand, responsible for day vision and color perception are the cones.

People have a high concentration of cone receptors. One the other hand, we have a low concentration of rod receptors. This explains why we can detect color better but, we can't see very well at night.

People have three types of cones. Each cone is tuned to pick up green, red, or blue wavelengths of light. The receptors turn these colors, when light hits our eyes, into electrical signals that are eventually sent to the brain. 

Then, by blending the signals that each receptor senses, our brains determine the color that we see.

"In person, the dress is clearly blue and black. The lighting of the image, which has a bluish tint, appears to be what is throwing people's brains off. It makes the blue part look white and black part look gold," as per the Business Insider.

According to WIRED, the image of the dress hits some kind of perceptual boundary, which might be due to how people are wired. 

"What's happening here is your visual system is looking at this thing, and you're trying to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis," said Bevil Conway, a neuroscientist who studies color and vision at Wellesley College.

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