What it's like to be color blind

[SkyBell]

In that picture, i actually see an 8 and not just a 3

So did Chundles, but somewhere in the thread it was made clear it's a three, though it could easily be mistaken for 8.

It's wierd not seeing the three when everybody else does, but not seeing a number in dots doesn't really matter to me anyway. You just have to be thankful you have any sight at all.

 

[SkyBell]

It's ironic that I'm a big fan of the musical Wicked (I saw it for the second time last week) even though one of its attention-getters is that the lead character (Elphaba the witch) has green skin in the show. At least that's what I'm told.

I assume that Julia Murney is green in this publicity photo, but I can't tell. Other than being so stylishly dressed she looks like everyone else to me.

I saw that a few weeks ago in New York City. Best musical I've ever seen.

 

[gauchogolfer]

I've always been curious, and forgive me if this has already been asked, but is there a form of color blindness where you don't see any color at all? Just all black and white?

Indeed there is. In fact, it's called achromatopsia, and the sufferers see only in monochrome greyscale, no color at all. It's evidently very rare, and often associated with severe sensitivity to normal intensity of light.

 

[Doctor Q]

Random facts:

Mr. Rogers was color blind.

So was Emerson Moser, senior crayon maker for Crayola. He kept secret that he was blue-green color blind!

Cattle are color blind, so it doens't matter what color cape you wave at them.

Supposedly, all humans are color blind at birth. Their parents may care whether they have pink or blue blankets, but Baby doesn't care.​

I found a color blindness explanation for kids. It's a bit oversimplified, but it's a good starter explanation for color blind youngsters and their friends or siblings.

 

[NATO]

You can count me in as yet another MacRumors guy with Colour Deficiency Issues

I discovered I had colour vision problems when I was in primary school when my teacher curiously asked why I'd drawn a tree with a green trunk and brown leaves. The next day the school nurse arrived and ran me through the colour vision tests and discovered I had a noticeable colour vision problem.

Saying that, I don't find that its really an issue in day-to-day life, only when asked to describe the colour of something which I can't deduce by a process of elimination based on the shade, the type of object etc.

There are only a few things which I have had problems with though. The main gripe I have these days is the use of small LEDs on electronic products where it changes colour between red/orange/green. If there were seperate LEDs then I would be able to work out the significance based on its position, but for example, my new iPod shuffle has an LED which changes from amber to green when its fully charged. I haven't got a clue when that happens as I can't detect the change so I just leave it overnight to be sure The smaller the LED the more of a problem it is, the LED on my Airport Express is noticeably larger and the same colour change is easier to work out (although it's still far from obvious).

Another problem is cooking meat. I tend to over-cook meat as its only then that I can see that it is cooked enough, I can't detect the pink in raw meat so I don't know what to look for.

The only time that colour deficiency has proved an issue in education is whenever I took my GCSE Chemistry exam where we had to perform a titration and the solution had to go from clear to *very slightly* pink. Of course I overshot the mark and went to red (which looked barely pink to me). The teacher refused to assist me - she didn't consider it a 'real' issue

I learn to live with my colour deficiency and although I used to get really annoyed in school when classmates would continuously ask me the colour of things, in adult life its just not an issue, even in my chosen career of Electrical/Electronic Engineering.

I would love for electronics companies (including Apple) to stop using these red/amber/green LEDs and either use different colours or seperate LEDs. Thats the only thing I would like to change.

 

[kenn4eva]

Seeing from a different perspective...

I've tried imagining what it would be like to be color-blind, but it's always just baffled me. Your description of what it's like helps a lot, but it still just boggles the mind that you can't see the various shades of red and green. So blood looks brown or purple? Marcia Cross looks like a brunette to you??

http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/2.html

This page has a lot of information about colour blindness, and it has a picture of a flower AND the number (for testing colour blindness). Just place ur mous over an option and u will see all.

hope this helped

xxx

 

[Doctor Q]

Anybody been playing Apple's Puzzler Game?

Here's a screenshot of the real game, and a simulation of how it looks to me. It's not a perfect simulation (the red dots don't really look that light to me) but I assume that it shows why I have trouble with the green and orange dots.

The green and orange dots look identical to me. I had assumed, without thinking about it much, that I was seeing them both as green or both as orange. Then my wife told me they are both yellow in the simulation, so I guess I see them both as yellow.

I'm not sure why the green dots look yellow to me, but it makes sense that orange dots look yellow to me since the red in them doesn't register properly in my sensory system.

Still, I managed to beat the game once so far. Many times I've completed what I thought was a winning game by reducing the dots to a single bunch of greenorangeyellowwhatever dots, only to click the bunch and find that they are a checkboard mixture that can't be cleared. But I'll keep trying!

 

[AliensAreFuzzy]

I'm color blind as well. I actually happened to be diagnosed by accident. I was at my mom's office one day when I was yound and I was bored, so she gave me the dot test to keep me entertained. I kept complaining because I didn't see anything on a bunch of them, so that's when we figured it out.

The one time it really affected me was in my engineering lecture last year. The teacher put up a red slide with green text. I was so confused why I couldn't see anything on the slide, yet people were still writing. Finally, I asked the person sitting next to me and turns out that I just couldn't see the difference between the text and the background.

 

[Fearless Leader]

One cool thing about this whole color blindness of mine, I have a cheapo Radioshack red laser pointer. My friend bought a 800$ orange one, and a 300$ green one. The green one is a dull brownish yellow, but the real expensive orange one and my red one come out to be pretty much the same shade of yellow.

 

[steamboat26]

I remember taking the color blind test online, and there was one number i could barely make out.
Then while i was babysitting, i was holding a ball that i thought was purple, but everyone else that i asked said it was blue.
This makes me pretty sure that i am either crazy eek or slightly color blind

 

[theBB]

Here is another type of color blindness test: 10 slides where you identify which colored dot looks most like the one in the center. It points out each mistake as you go, so for me it says "You have just made a Protanomalous type of matching error" after most of them, confirming what I already know.

Note: If the link doesn't work, try this one.

Do you mind posting another link to that 10 slide test? The link does not work anymore, but I am quite curious.

 

[Doctor Q]

Those slides seem to be gone.

For online tests, you can try tests ranging from a simple kid-friendly test to the standard Ishihara-style test (there's even a video version!) to the complicated Farnsworth-Munsel test (Java applet).

Other interesting web pages:

Statistics and samples about color blindness

Nintendo DS Battery Indicator Light Solution for Color Blind Users

Poster with hidden stick figures (more polite that those posters that insult color blind people in a way they can't see)

Web page filter that simulates color blindness. Type in a URL. Pick "protanopia (red/green color blindness; no red cones)" to simulate my vision, and "deutanopia (red/green color blindness; no green cones)" to simulate the more common variety.

Visolve - Mac software that will change the hues on your screen, snapshot style, so the color blind can differentiate similar-looking colors.​

 

[Sean Dempsey]

I have a similarly named condition:

 

[SkyBell]

I have a similarly named condition:

Uh, what?

 

[WildCowboy]

Uh, what?

I believe he's "Colander Blind."

 

[SkyBell]

I believe he's "Colander Blind."

That's what it's called? I knew it began with a "C" but i couldn't remember the name.

 

[Patrick425]

Both my older and younger brothers are color blind, not me however. My grandpa has it and my moms the carrier I guess, if thats how it works.

 

[Joshua8o8]

i'll never take seeing colors for granted again.

 

[juanm]

I have a similarly named condition:

You're blind?

 

[queshy]

but what I don't get is this...red is a super common color (obviously). If someone is colorblind and can't perceive red, do they not comprehend what red is? Can they imagine it? How do you describe red? Do they know what red is but they just can't see it?

 

[SkyBell]

but what I don't get is this...red is a super common color (obviously). If someone is colorblind and can't perceive red, do they not comprehend what red is? Can they imagine it? How do you describe red? Do they know what red is but they just can't see it?

We know what red is. It just looks different to us then it does to you.

 

[Doctor Q]

but what I don't get is this...red is a super common color (obviously). If someone is colorblind and can't perceive red, do they not comprehend what red is? Can they imagine it? How do you describe red? Do they know what red is but they just can't see it?

We know what red is. It just looks different to us then it does to you.

I don't know whether to agree or not. I've never sensed red, but I understand intellectually that it's just another shade, just as you understand that there are ultraviolet and infrared light frequencies off the scale for human visual perception.

Another example: Humans can hear a certain range of frequencies. Dogs can hear even higher frequencies. It's not a puzzle, and we can describe the sounds ("high-pitched"), but we can't hear them ourselves.

It would be much harder to describe sight to someone blind since birth or hearing to someone deaf since birth. "We can sense things at a distance without touching them!"

 

[SkyBell]

I don't know whether to agree or not. I've never sensed red, but I understand intellectually that it's just another shade, just as you understand that there are ultraviolet and infrared light frequencies off the scale for human visual perception.

Another example: Humans can hear a certain range of frequencies. Dogs can hear even higher frequencies. It's not a puzzle, and we can describe the sounds ("high-pitched"), but we can't hear them ourselves.

It would be much harder to describe sight to someone blind since birth or hearing to someone deaf since birth. "We can sense things at a distance without touching them!"

Ah yes, I do agree with you. We can't sense or imagine what it "really" is, but we know it exists.

 

[ghall]

This thread got me thinking if I might be color blind. And guess what? I think I'm slightly colorblind, because I saw the 5 on this image.

 

[WildCowboy]

This thread got me thinking if I might be color blind. And guess what? I think I'm slightly colorblind, because I saw the 5 on this image.

FWIW, I see the "5" pretty clearly. And every other test I've taken has shown no hint of colorblindness, and I have no other reason to suspect that I have it.