From my quick accidental experiment, I think that what you see is related to your visual experience in the preceding minutes.
I too was looking at this and thinking, "How can anyone say that that dress looks white and gold?" I could only see blue and black.
I went outside to get lunch, came back, got yet another dress picture in my social feed but lo, it was white and gold...!
My immediate assumption was that I had seen a doctored image but having gone back to this post, where I previously could only see blue and black, I could now only see white and gold.
My hypothesis is therefore that the type of light you've recently been experiencing influences how your brain interprets the colours in the dress image.
Going from daylight into artificial fluorescent lighting gives White/Gold. But, after some time under fluorescent lighting it turns Blue/Black. For me this hypothesis is somewhat supported by the fact that now that I've been back inside for 20 minutes the dress is Blue/Black again.
I'm suddenly reminded of my experience of the Chromosaturation installation by Carlos Cruz-Diez that I saw at the Hayward Gallery Light Show Exhibition. [1]
This was a trio of rooms which were saturated with either blue, red or green light. On entering each room everything appeared tinted with the colour of the light. However, after 5 minutes the brain had restored the perceived balance to normal. You could entirely forget that you were in a colour saturated room.
When moving to another of the rooms the effect began again but with everything tinted whatever colour the new room was saturated in before gradually adapting back to "normal".
I think this supports my above hypothesis. The brain takes some time to adjust to new light sources and will skew perceived colours for a short time after changing the ambient light source.
I used to work in a dark room used for silkscreening, where the only lights in the room were yellow. After only a few minutes I'd stop noticing the yellow light. When I'd leave the room at the end of my shift, everything was extremely blue for a few minutes before returning to normal. It's neat how we are able to quickly adapt to such situations.
I too was looking at this and thinking, "How can anyone say that that dress looks white and gold?" I could only see blue and black.
I went outside to get lunch, came back, got yet another dress picture in my social feed but lo, it was white and gold...!
My immediate assumption was that I had seen a doctored image but having gone back to this post, where I previously could only see blue and black, I could now only see white and gold.
My hypothesis is therefore that the type of light you've recently been experiencing influences how your brain interprets the colours in the dress image.
Going from daylight into artificial fluorescent lighting gives White/Gold. But, after some time under fluorescent lighting it turns Blue/Black. For me this hypothesis is somewhat supported by the fact that now that I've been back inside for 20 minutes the dress is Blue/Black again.