ok...the article in time magazine got it right. only one i've seen so far. off to do something else now...

Kancho
I think you are right. I looked at only a portion of a picture and it's still the same color -- gold and white-ish.

deathtokoalas
you're missing the point. what you're seeing on the screen doesn't have anything to do with your "perception", or even what colour the dress actually is - it has to do with your computer reconstructing the image differently than mine does, through a variety of hardware and software differences, and that projection on a screen interacting in the room that you're in. to put it differently, the conditions we each observe the differently constructed image (which is not real) in are not controlled. so, you're not actually looking at the same thing i'm looking at. we're looking at different imperfect copies of the same ideal form.