AKIPRESS.COM - The Internet "broke" on Thursday night thanks to a dress that had defied the classification of color and divided the planet into those who see it white and gold and those who see it black and blue.
“I’ve studied individual differences in color vision for 30 years, and this is one of the biggest individual differences I’ve ever seen.” Jay Neitz, a color-vision researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle, told Wired.
According to Neitz, an individual’s lens, which is part of the eyeball, changes over the course of one’s lifespan.
Individuals are less sensitive to blue light when they are older which could explain why older people are seeing white and gold, however the theory has not been yet proven.
“The wavelength composition of the light reflected from an object changes considerably in different conditions of illumination. Nevertheless, the color of the object remains the same,” writes Science Daily. Thus, because the photo is taken in lighting with a blue hue, it may be causing the blues in the dress to reflect a white color. And while the dress may in fact be blue and black, the lighting does, for some viewers, make it appear to be white and gold.