You need to make more feminine assumptions Windy, and go dress shopping more often. You shouldn't be fooled by what you see. Lighting in a shop is deceptive. Who wants to be fooled by cheap fabric ? no way. That picture is a photo and isn't 2D like something Marge Simpson wears. Er duh she has blue hair.
Is this dress blue or white? Obviously white.
Veri, the explanation is that, we are biased in our perception of colour based on what we attribute to the time or the colour of "the day" or surrounding lighting. The day can be white/yellow/gold/red to bluish-black depending on the lighting outside or around/in a room. So our brains have a way of blocking out that "day influence" in our perception of an object's colour and making up for it by enhancing some colours on the object.
Those like you and I who see white under some kind of shade, do so because our brains have attributed any blue there as coming from the "day colour" or the lighting of the room, rather than the object's colour. So our brains mercilessly cut out almost all the blue and interprets the dress as white/tan.
Brains of people like Terminator interpret all the yellow/gold they see as coming from the colour of the day/room lighting and not the object, so they mercilessly cut it all out and the people end up seeing only blue/black on the dress itself.
You are also right, in that, past experience can influence how you see. In this case, you and I may be influenced by past fabric-shopping experiences in shops.
......At least, that is what I understood from this article:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dress-people-viral-outfit-colors-differently/story?id=29268831Very interesting explanation. In that picture on the article, the blue-black is totally unambiguous, very clear. If you compare this picture to the earlier picture, the differences can be startling for someone who sees white/tan in the latter.
Here's the same dress in the same colour but seen in a different shop, that is, in a different picture/lighting.
Now,
this, is a blue-black dress!
Oh, and PLEASE scroll down and check out the debate in the
comments beneath the article. Absolutely hilarious! Seems even the explanations offered could NOT settle this fight, ha ha!!
Here it is again:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dress-people-viral-outfit-colors-differently/story?id=29268831