Hmmm... My wife says she has trouble seeing the numbers on that clock too, and she has normal color vision.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What it's like to be color blind
- Thread starter Doctor Q
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
My problem is the opposite, I can see color quite vividly (leading edges of a rainbow take on a silverish brown after the violet--or maybe I am crazy) as long as there is enough light. I am quite night blind otherwise--wearing red lenses during the day or having a red lamp minimizes this for me but I am horrible with low light conditions unless I spend an extensive amount of time under that specific kind of color in the spectrum. I remember there was a term for the way the eye adjusts when I was taking psychology in college but the term eludes me something to do with fatigue in the retina.
The Color Test iPhone application implements the Color Quiz (take the online version) based on the theories of Dr. Max Lüscher that your color preferences reflect your personality. His test method makes no allowance for color blindness so presumably it misreads the personality of those who misread colors.
It certainly seems to have misjudged me when I tried it. The test results indicate that I am helpless, anxious, and in adequate [sic] and that I am subject to outbursts of anger. Wrong! Either (a) the whole concept is no better than a horoscope or (b) I choose colors, based on faulty perception, in a way that matches the choices of a helpless and angry person with normal vision. I suspect it's the former.
It certainly seems to have misjudged me when I tried it. The test results indicate that I am helpless, anxious, and in adequate [sic] and that I am subject to outbursts of anger. Wrong! Either (a) the whole concept is no better than a horoscope or (b) I choose colors, based on faulty perception, in a way that matches the choices of a helpless and angry person with normal vision. I suspect it's the former.
That test definitely doesn't seem to reflect any of the the premise of real basic psychology (or at least any of the concepts I've studied), it seems very amateurish to say the least.
Well yes, as a doctor of psychology I can say readily that the accuracy of most of the online or onPhone tests/apps are novelties. Even if they are based on something that seems to have some reliability or validity such as the work of Dr. Max Lüscher, the idea that they can still be useful tools in this form is far fetched.
It's like printing out a bunch of Rorschach cards (ink blots) and using them to tell fortunes at a party (Interestingly the Rorschach test was actually rooted in a party game). A true psycho-diagnostic test is like a scalpel, without the proper context (such as therapy) it's blind analysis...tarot readers would be better at that.
Wow... Nice post..Even my dad also colour blind....anyway Thanks for sharing info..
another victim checking in. I never knew their was a condition, but when I found out, it explained why I colored grass brown instead of green in 2nd grade. To me brown and green were sorta alike....and to think my teacher got mad at me.
Oh well, I've never had any problems with it. Granted, I'm sure my clothes haven't matched sometimes.
Oh well, I've never had any problems with it. Granted, I'm sure my clothes haven't matched sometimes.
Maybe if they yell at us enough we'll "just get over it."To me brown and green were sorta alike....and to think my teacher got mad at me.
I'll venture to say no to both questions. We color blind must "dream in color blind" since (as far as I can tell) dreams are based on replayed bits of real life you've experienced. If I saw a color in a dream that I can't see in the real world then I would presumably notice that something was new or different, and that's never happened to me.
The best analogy I can think of is if you'd never heard someone speak in Latin. You simply know that there's such a language and that other people know how to speak it and understand it. Would your dreams be Latin-free? Probably. Would you ever hear Latin spoken in a dream? If you did, it would be a made-up language, not the actual language.
Maybe if they yell at us enough we'll "just get over it."
I'll venture to say no to both questions. We color blind must "dream in color blind" since (as far as I can tell) dreams are based on replayed bits of real life you've experienced. If I saw a color in a dream that I can't see in the real world then I would presumably notice that something was new or different, and that's never happened to me.
The best analogy I can think of is if you'd never heard someone speak in Latin. You simply know that there's such a language and that other people know how to speak it and understand it. Would your dreams be Latin-free? Probably. Would you ever hear Latin spoken in a dream? If you did, it would be a made-up language, not the actual language.
That's quite a decent analogy Doc...other than the exception of the capabilities of learning to speak or read Latin as in comparison to the possibility of spontaneous growth of healthy cones in the retina, but quite sufficient for immediate purposes--I feel it works well as a very good explanation.
Hmmm - unlike Latin, vision is something that is a given. We don't need to learn it. I was thinking along the lines of a test that was done on caterpillars - they trained a caterpillar to a maze. When that caterpillar had children, they were able to navigate their way through the maze as if they had done that maze before.
Probably not relevant, but just a thought.
I went to the movie Avatar in a 3D theater (not the IMAX version). When I wore the 3D glasses I saw the 3D effects onscreen but everything was very dark, like the movie was shot with insufficient light. I couldn't distinguish details in shadows. If I took off the glasses the background images were out of focus, as you'd expect, but then the movie was properly bright. My wife said the movie didn't look darker to her with the glasses on.
Was this because I'm red-green colorblind? Could I have had a bad pair of glasses?
I thought Avatar and other recent 3D movies use glasses with left and right lenses polarized in different directions and a polarizing filter in front of the projector lens, so it doesn't depend on color. When Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland comes out I don't know whether to bother seeing it in 3D.
Was this because I'm red-green colorblind? Could I have had a bad pair of glasses?
I thought Avatar and other recent 3D movies use glasses with left and right lenses polarized in different directions and a polarizing filter in front of the projector lens, so it doesn't depend on color. When Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland comes out I don't know whether to bother seeing it in 3D.
Was this because I'm red-green colorblind? Could I have had a bad pair of glasses?
I thought Avatar and other recent 3D movies use glasses with left and right lenses polarized in different directions and a polarizing filter in front of the projector lens, so it doesn't depend on color. When Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland comes out I don't know whether to bother seeing it in 3D.
Well because you don't have all color receptors there is already some light missing (at least I think so, logically it should).
Adding the polarized filter removes another portion of the light (the light that isn't oriented correctly, at both the projector and the glasses). So overall there is much less light than with a regular movie...
I think that would imply that I see less light all the time, rather than just a false-color version of of the world, but I don't think I see the world as darker or have trouble distinguishing details in shadows. Except during the movie. So I'm still puzzled.
Same here. Some years ago I was doing a safe driving training that one of my employers required. Part of the training was also a visual test, which I failed. I was staring at the color dot charts and simply didn't see the numbers on some of them. So in my mid-30s I was told that I was red-green color blind. I suppose I never fully realized that because I can clearly see the difference between the red and green colors, but once you start going away from the primary colors and into their different hues, I'll lose the ability to identify the color. I can still see the color, but can't necessarily correctly identify its shade.
Indeed. I know what you mean.
This is a great thread! Thank you Doctor Q for creating it and for providing numerous examples and explanations.
Does anybody besides me have trouble telling which posts you've selected with vBulletin's Multi-Quote feature?
At a glance I can't tell these two images apart. I really have to stare closely.
If I'm not the only one with this problem, perhaps we could come up with an alternative that's more distinct for color blind users but still OK for regular-sighted users, then talk arn into using it instead of the standard vBulletin graphic. I made this version in Photoshop by adding a blue border, to give you the idea.
At a glance I can't tell these two images apart. I really have to stare closely.
If I'm not the only one with this problem, perhaps we could come up with an alternative that's more distinct for color blind users but still OK for regular-sighted users, then talk arn into using it instead of the standard vBulletin graphic. I made this version in Photoshop by adding a blue border, to give you the idea.
Both styles are fine with me. Not being color blind though, neither seems more beneficial. I say if the one with the border helps people see better then go for it! Like I said neither seems better then the other in my opinion; I can tell it's selected in both sets.
XKCD did a color survey. The results are a mixture of seriousness and silliness.
I ran a simulation of my vision on the color space map shown with their results. The original is on the left and what I see is on the right.
I ran a simulation of my vision on the color space map shown with their results. The original is on the left and what I see is on the right.
Attachments
Yes, mostly. With a perfect simulation I won't know the difference if you swap the images. This simulation isn't an exact match for my vision so I see the original as a bit brighter than the simulation if I look at the fullsize images. But in thumbnail size I can't tell them apart.
How 'bout this one? Do they look very similar to you? The one I posted above is for people like me with less effective red cones. This one is for people with less effective green cones.
