Ask the Color-Blind Dude...

[SkipMagic]

After having bonded with Monty in this thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=172091) (well, okay; not "bonded" so much as "Hey! You, too?"), I thought I'd start a "Pay attention to me!" thread about color-blindness.

Which isn't to say that I have any professional expertise about the causes (I blame my Ma'), cures (poke yer eyes out, Oedipus, and then bitch about colors) or whether I'm legally allowed to get a handicapped parking license plate ("Yeah, Grandma, you can't have this space because the friggin grass is NEVAH greener to me!"), but I will answer all of yer burning questions about what it's like to live with this horrible, soul-wrenching, debilitating trait.

Like, for instance, while I was driving for the first time through Nebraska City, Nebraska and found myself running multiple red lights. Damn things were on their sides (never seen that before) and I assumed that I was... well, guessing correctly.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" my best friend shouted when he awoke from his nap.

"Driving," I said. I mean, after all...

"Stop! You're shotgun for the rest of this trip!"

Well, really! :)

[ForgottenLore]

So, are you red-green colorblind? Totally colorblind? Other?

Assuming red-green (I'm under the impression that's the commonest form) I have one question I've always wanted to ask: If someone points at something and says "That's bright red" or "that's bright green", what color do you see? Black? Brown? Gray? To my knowledge I've only known one person who was color blind and he was kinda sensitive about it, so I never asked.

[mooka]

Wow, it sounds like you are pretty colour blind. I'm a little red-green colour blind, but i only notice this in those coloured dots tests, it never affects me in real life. So to answer ForgottenLores question - i see red and green.

But i would be interested in what you see Skipmagic - can you see red or green at all?

[Eve]

How do you buy clothing? Do you take someone with you to make sure you don't get clashing colors, or do get colors that are flattering to you?

—Eve (yeah, like you thought I was gonna ask about anything but clothing?)

[SkipMagic]

ForgottenLore: Well, the last eye doctor to whom I went suggested that I was both red/green and blue/yellow color-blind. (I may have misunderstood as of the two of us, I was the only one who seemed interested in knowing. Bastard. :)) Both are red-deficient; however, after reading this site (http://members.aol.com/nocolorvsn/color2.htm), it looks (from a strictly layman's point-of-view) that I "suffer" from Deuteranopia.

Sounds like I have a dinosaur-shaped tumor growing from my ass, doesn't it? I wonder what color that would be?

Bright red, to me, looks like it's either orange or, well, bright red. When a color is by itself, I'm usually okay. When it hangs out with buddies (such as in a puzzle), I'm screwed. I try, sure, but mostly because I like mocking myself. ;)

Bright green almost always looks like a yellow to me; same with buff and ivory. A traffic light green generally looks white to me. Heck, off-white looks white to me. Auntie em says I'm pink, but I still fill out "White" on those census forms.

mooka: I'm not totally color-blind, although I've oft wondered about what it'd be like. I'm lucky, I feel. I'm also an excellent way to break the ice at parties--and not just by throwing ice cubes at my head. Plenty of people still play the "So, what color is this?" game. (All of you are exempt from that playful condemnation; after all, I brought this on myself with this thread.) It's not like being color-blind is a stigma, although it can lead you to run red lights and show up in an outfit that Sonny Bono and Cher would have picked out together. (Okay, to be fair, that last example combined being both color-blind and taste-blind.)

Eve: I try to take a woman with me when I go shopping because 1.) less women are color-blind than men and 2.) stereotype that it is, most men I know suck at fashion. ("Get the club shirt! And the cordurouy pants! And the wife-beater! You are sooooo gonna get laid tonight!") However, if I've saddled up the bandwagon ("Hey, everyone else has new spring clothes--I want some!") and I go shopping on a whim, I tend to ask the friendliest looking woman walking by me at the store.

Mostly I want to know if the colors clash; sometimes, if that wayward woman is attractive, I want to know if the clothes are trendy, too.

Blue, gray, white and black are safe for me. I mean, most anything goes with those colors, right? For all else, I am at a loss. My wardrobe is replete with blue and gray shirts.

But things like khakis and ties and the whole "Make sure that a spot of color from your pants matches a stripe of color on your shirt before you go out..." rule completely escapes my grasp.

The sad part is that, on my own, I will never look like an Ambercrombie & Fitch model. The happy part is that I will never look like and Ambercrombie & Fitch model. :)

[Elret]

My dad is colourblind as well, and we put little numbers on the tags of all his clothes. For example, he knows that any shirt with a one on the tag will go with any pants that also have a one. Works pretty well for him, he always looks dang dapper.

[SkipMagic]

Interesting thing is, both of my brothers are color-blind as well as my father. It's your mom who hides color-blindness inside her biological Easter egg, so you don't strictly get it from your father. The fact that my dad can't tell if his grass is green or brown is sheer coincidence.

And hey, Elret, I've really thought of going with a number system. But it all boils down to finding someone who you trust won't screw with you. And, basically, finding someone who, although can see all the colors, has enough color-savvy to tell what looks good and what doesn't.

But when I find an outfit that matches and looks good on me, I keep it until the threads rot away! :p (A fact that probably has embarrassed any number of my SOs.)

[juji_mojo]

My mom used to work with a woman with yellow/Blue colour blindness. And was always beautifully dressed. often in blues and pinks, which suited her complexion fine.

Her secret was she always shopped at the same stores, and not only had a clerk that helped her, she bought "outfits" as a unit. She also had a card file and number system. Ie blouse 1-A goes with suit one, and so on.

She could never tell if it was nice out by looking out the window, since the sky always looked some shade of grey to her. And she despised any shade of green, once said to my other in her nice sort of tourquoise sweater "good god, why would you wear something like that!"

[MrVisible]

How did you first suspect you were colorblind? When did it come to your attention?

I ask because I was showing a friend of mine's son how to build a computer, and we'd just installed a CD-ROM. He asked me why the light flashed brighter every so often. When I looked at it, it was one of those old Sonys that flashed alternately orange and green. We spent the rest of the evening surfing the web for information on colorblindness; he was sixteen, and never knew he had it.

[SkipMagic]

Eh, I believe I was in first grade. Neosho Heights Elementary School in Oswego, Kansas. (http://www.greatschools.net/modperl/browse_school/ks/978)

I think it was a routine vision test that led them to my deep, dark (not any praticular color of dark, mind you; just "dark") secret. We took a test similar (if not the same test) as the Ishihara test. (http://members.aol.com/protanope/colorblindtest2.html)

I saw no numbers and, in addition, a few 3-D pictures failed to work their 3-D magic. In fact, even today I can't use the red and blue 3-D glasses because they don't work for me. I just see the separate images shoved up against each other. Around Halloween of this last year, while on a business trip, I was visiting the Queen Mary near Anaheim, California, for the ship's annual haunted house spectacular. One of the mazes was filled with 3-D decorations, all of which were meant to distract you from the occasional staff members wanting to scare you.

Me? I was disappointed. But maybe it had more to do with the organizers playing bad heavy metal at ear-splitting volume just to scare you. Or confuse you; I'm not sure which. :)

I've the same problem as your friend's son, MrVisible. Occasionally when I call in for support of my servers, Dell asks what color the blinking lights are on the RAID drives.

"Um... I dunno," I say rather dumbly. It's an annoyance, but not something I can't get over.

This may be a fabricated memory, but I think my parents suspected I was color-blind (or maybe they just thought I weird) when I kept giving the wrong answers for the "What color is that car?" game. I never failed (and still don't) to think that the purple cars were blue. For me, purple doesn't really exist. It's either blue, or so filled with red that I think it's pink.

My new car is silver. :D

[Achernar]

Do you ever come across a webpage for which the content is inacessible to you because of color? For instance, a list of people that has males listed in one color and females listed in another, but they're in colors you can't distinguish?

[Helena]

We have a friend with a teenage son who is profoundly colorblind--as far as I understand it he can't see any color at all. We saw a rainbow the other day and I had to wonder how would it look to this kid. Would he even see anything?

[SkipMagic]

Achernar: Yes; in fact, it's one of my biggest (private--at least until now) pet peeves. Not only do people sometimes create really crappy web pages (guilty as charged!), but they do so in colors that makes it difficult for me to see how crappy. And really, where's the fun in that?

Take, for instance, a friend's website for his LAN party. (http://www.kcbeatdown.com) I don't go to these geeky get-togethers (not that I'm knocking either them or the people who do go), but I do enjoy signing on to his forum and creating havoc. I'm a friendly troll. I only eat one billy goat each time I visit. :)

Anyway, the red text on a black background makes it near impossible for me to read. Or even a dark brown background--that's difficult, too. So, using Opera as my web browser, I have to remove almost all formating ("author mode") to see what is being said.

It's also the reason that, when it comes to my artistic talent, I have to stick with either non-color pencils or plain pen-and-ink. Now that used to depress me a bit because I always looked at the color paintings out there and felt a bit sad that I couldn't do the same. But then I got laid for the first time and forgot all about being depressed. :)

Helena: I'm only partially color-blind, so I'm not sure what your friend's son saw. As I understand it, people with his version (called achromatopsia) see a world mainly made up of shades of black, white and grey--similar to a black-and-white television. My guess is that, yes, he saw parts of the rainbow, but a lot of it (if it was a strong rainbow) probably faded into the sky for him.

That happens to me, too. I see a faint yellow (or green, or buff, or tan, etc...) and possibly a different hue of blue than the sky, but that's about all. I fear that if I ever follow the rainbow that I see to a leprechaun's pot o' gold, he'll cry "Foul!" and just give me a scratch-off lottery ticket.

Da' wee bastirrrd. ;)

Achromatopsia only rears its ugly and colorless head in about 1 person in 33,000. In addition to the lack of color, they also suffer from poor visual acuity. Plus, even in daylight are they sensitive to the light, so no matter what Timbuck 3 believed about wearing shades for the future, achromatopsia sufferers have to wear them constantly.

[Carcosa]

Originally posted by Helena
We have a friend with a teenage son who is profoundly colorblind--as far as I understand it he can't see any color at all. We saw a rainbow the other day and I had to wonder how would it look to this kid. Would he even see anything?

Yep, he can see it. Maybe not what you see, but he'll be aware of the brightness and contrast.

[Achernar]

Originally posted by SkipMagic
Anyway, the red text on a black background makes it near impossible for me to read. Or even a dark brown background--that's difficult, too.Okay, that's interesting. Thanks for the response. It's important to me that my webpage be accessible to people with disabilities, so besides avoiding red on black, can you give me some tips as to what color combinations to use or avoid? I have a style-sheet switcher that ideally would give everyone a wide variety of choices, but unfortunately, I don't have it working in Opera yet. :smack:

[Q.E.D.]

Originally posted by Achernar
Okay, that's interesting. Thanks for the response. It's important to me that my webpage be accessible to people with disabilities, so besides avoiding red on black, can you give me some tips as to what color combinations to use or avoid? I have a style-sheet switcher that ideally would give everyone a wide variety of choices, but unfortunately, I don't have it working in Opera yet. :smack:
I'd think with all the different types of colorblindess it would be nearly impossible to have a given color scheme that everyone can see, but I'm no expert.

One question I've wondered about, is what does white look like to a colorblind person? Obviously, a complete answer depends on the type of colorblindess. I'd think that a person with the common red-green colorblindness will see white as being more blue. is that correct?

[SkipMagic]

Originally posted by Achernar
Okay, that's interesting. Thanks for the response. It's important to me that my webpage be accessible to people with disabilities, so besides avoiding red on black, can you give me some tips as to what color combinations to use or avoid? I have a style-sheet switcher that ideally would give everyone a wide variety of choices, but unfortunately, I don't have it working in Opera yet. :smack:

Having just visited your web page in IE 6, I say that, where my eyes are concerned, everything is very readable. When it comes to reading, I prefer plain old black and white anyway, so your monochrome style-sheet works best for me. However, that's just a personal preference as the pacing and standard style-sheets work fine, too.

That said, for those afflicted with the same level of color-blindness as myself, it's useful to see text that contrasts with the background. So, if you have a light background, try using dark text; and vice-versa, of course.

Problem is, when even different colors start approaching the same shade, so to speak, it's hard to tell the difference. If you have issues reading the light green text on a light yellow background, I can guarantee that I won't be able to see anything.

So, the text/background combinations (off the top of my strawberry-blond noggin') I'd avoid are:

Blue/Purple
Red/Dark Green (throw in a dark red with a light green and you should be kosher)
Yellow/Green
Pink/Red
Navy Blue/Black (common sense, I'm sure--seems like everyone has problems with those)
Red/Brown
Light Blue/Grey/Light Green
Red/Orange
Yellow/Tan
White/Grey
Etc...

Once again, the biggest issue with the readability of the color pairings listed is that they provide little to no contrast in my eyes. I'm sure some are combinations that you'd never consider anyway, but just in case your mind goes wacky one night... :)

Seriously though, thanks for considering us when you make your web pages. It really does help.

[SkipMagic]

Originally posted by Q.E.D.
I'd think that a person with the common red-green colorblindness will see white as being more blue. is that correct?

Funny that you should mention that, actually. See, I always thought I was making the blue tinge up in my mind when I saw a duller white compared to a much, much brighter white. The dull white does indeed look like, to me, it has a blue tinge. Huh. Verrrry interesting...

Kinda the same thing with diamonds, too. When I was talking with my step-uncle about getting a diamond for auntie em, he showed me two diamonds. The first, I thought, was clear. Then he showed me the second, really colorless diamond, and all of a sudden the first one, in contrast, looked clouded. It was supposed to look yellow, but to me it took on a color that I couldn't quite make out.

But the second one wasn't as sparkly as the first (the cut was slightly off), so I went with the first choice.

[WhetherMan]

When you say that bright red looks like orange, how do you know that it looks like the orange I see if you can't distinguish orange? Does that make sense? Not being colorblind I see red as others without colorblindness see red…and you see red as your red which happens to be different from my red. I don't quite understand how you know the red you see looks like my orange if the orange you see wouldn't be the same as my orange. Perhaps I could be mistaken that your orange is the same as my orange and that's why you can say it looks like my orange when you are looking at red. I hope I'm not being confusing but I've been curious about this and did not want to ask this question to anyone who is colorblind in fear of offending them. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about? I apologize if I'm completely missing things somewhere but I've often wondered about this and never quite given it enough thought to think it through so that it would make sense.

[Jimmy Chitwood]

Originally posted by WhetherMan
I don't quite understand how you know the red you see looks like my orange if the orange you see wouldn't be the same as my orange.

I'm colorblind too, but only partially, and I wondered the same thing when I saw this post. I have trouble distinguishing between two shades of colors and the like, but most of the time if I think something is red, so does everyone else. The thing is, the names for the colors aren't inherent to the objects- we can both look at an apple and agree it's red, but there's no way to cross check and see if "my" red is the same as "yours." In fact the only reason I know my eyes are deuteranomolous (I think I have that right) is because when I took the test they told me I was. In other words, what WhetherMan said: How DO you know your red is everyone else's orange? The only way I would imagine you'd know is if they told you so.

[AmbushBug]

A former coworker of mine developed this chart (http://www.visibone.com/color/chart2x.html) which has an inset for web designers to help them understand how to avoid color combinations which would make things confusing for some color-blind people.

I understand that there are different factors of color-blindness, but for you do you see the colors of the inset colorblindness reference chart (kind of lower left of the big chart, in the linked image) to be much the same hues as the large overall chart?

-AmbushBug

[E-Sabbath]

For me, I can't tell the difference between green and red in isolation. If they have a field of greens and reds, I can tell the difference, sort of, but if you point me at one, it's all red to me. Though I'm okay with traffic lights, unless they're that new kind that's kind of uniformly bright.
Same for brown and green or blue and purple. Yellow highlighter on white paper is physically painful to look at.

[Larry Bee]

Originally posted by MrVisible
How did you first suspect you were colorblind? When did it come to your attention?

I ask because I was showing a friend of mine's son how to build a computer, and we'd just installed a CD-ROM. He asked me why the light flashed brighter every so often. When I looked at it, it was one of those old Sonys that flashed alternately orange and green. We spent the rest of the evening surfing the web for information on colorblindness; he was sixteen, and never knew he had it.

A friend of mine finished a degree in Electrical Enigneeing and failed a medical for his first job because he was red/green colou-blind. He'd never noticed before and was devistated.

Now, nearly ten years later, hes trying to finish another degree at night.:)

[E-Sabbath]

Oh, and as far as buying clothes... I wonder if men dress so plainly because of color-blindness. I find I get one color pants and a range of shirts that go with. White and chambray goes with kahki. Actually, pretty much everything goes with kahki. Brown shoes.

Pretty much anything goes with blue jeans, too.

Fancier? Black suit, monocolor shirt, and a tie with some sort of pattern on it.

[Enigma42]

I'm a (mildly) colorblind graphic designer, so I may have some additional insight into the issue of color accesibilty in websites. There's already been a load of good info, so I'll try not to repeat too much. . .

It's already been mentioned that text should contrast from the background for best readability. For people with normal color vision, the color of the text itself (hue contrast) helps, but this isn't always the case for color blind people. My colorblindness is fairly slight, but since I'm very aware of the issue, I tend to test things very thoroughly. A very easy test that I conduct is to convert things into a grayscale image and check the readability in that form. I use Adobe Photoshop to do this at work, but most graphics software will have the ability. I just paste a screen capture into my graphics program and then convert to grayscale. If I can no longer read the text easily, then I know changes need to be made.

There is also a good online resource for checking color accesibility at www.vischeck.com . There are good examples of picture that have been altered to illustrate what colorblind people see as well as some good text info. In addition, they have a utility that will alter an image you upload or a webpage to simulate colorblindness. The coolest thing (to me) is that they even have a Photoshop-compatible plug-in the you can download. I believe this plug-in will also work in Paint Shop Pro and in Photoshop Elements. You can run any image through the filter and have it generate a simulation of how it will look to someone with any of the three main types of colorblindness.

[SkipMagic]

WhetherMan and Jimmy Chitwood: I know that the color I am seeing isn't the same as others are seeing because those people tell me. When I'm by myself, say, and am looking at a cover of a book, I don't worry whether the color I'm seeing really is orange. But when someone says, "Hand me that red book, eh?" and I mistakenly give them the wrong book, that's when I find out that I lost the color game again.

And after that happens time and time again with the same color(s), ya' pretty much learn which are your weaknesses. Never, for instance, ask me to separate the ripe bananas from the underripe ones.

Slight aside: WhetherMan, is your name a Phantom Tollbooth reference?

AmbushBug: The section that I think you wanted me to look at is so small and the colors so bunched together that I'm at a loss for even hazarding a guess concerning most of them. Mostly they blend together and instead of looking like separate cells of color, a lot of them look like they bleed into each other. And really, other than more colors bleeding together, the smaller chart looks like a miniture version of the larger one. Does that make sense?

E-Sabbath: Those overly-bright traffic lights are the worst for me! Those were the ones they had in Nebraska City! I mean, yes, usually I can tell the difference between the red and green (not so much with the yellow, and other than position) because the red, of course, is much darker. But with the brighter traffic lights like you mentioned, that brightness difference is all but gone, leaving me questioning whether I should stop, gun it, slow down or drive on the friggin' sidewalk.

I choose the sidewalk because you get more points for hitting the unsuspecting, walker-using old lady. :)

[WhetherMan]

SkipMagic, I've just now gotten a chance to jump back on the boards and do thank you for your reply; that certainly helps to clarify a bit. Would you have been offended by the question had you not said to throw everything out there? Somehow the "my colors" versus "your colors" is something I had always wanted to stay away from since it has a sense of …I don't know…"mine" is better than "yours" type of thing.

And in answer to your side-note…"it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be."
:)

[SkipMagic]

Nah, WhetherMan, when it comes to me being color-blind, pretty much all questions are fair game with or without qualifications. Had you come up to me on the street and asked the same questions, it wouldn't have bothered me at all.

My color-blindness isn't a hardship. Confusing at times, yes; humorous most of the time, defnitely; but nothing like real disabilities. At least not in my life.

I mean, hey, I'd rather be confised on colors than to not be able to see anything at all.

You know, we also have a Canby and an Official Which on this board, too. In fact, my signature (which I almost never use) is this:

[AmbushBug]

Originally posted by SkipMagic
The section that I think you wanted me to look at is so small and the colors so bunched together that I'm at a loss for even hazarding a guess concerning most of them. Mostly they blend together and instead of looking like separate cells of color, a lot of them look like they bleed into each other. And really, other than more colors bleeding together, the smaller chart looks like a miniture version of the larger one. Does that make sense?


Yeah I think so. You see, the deal is (I should have explained better) that all the little squares on the big chart are different colors, and the small representation of the big chart is supposed to be "how some color-blind people would see the colors in the big chart". So by asking how similar in appearance the big vs. little charts were to you, I was validating the chart for anyone who might want to buy one from my former cow-orker :D
no, i don't get kickbacks and my motive was not to advertise for the site. just a joke

Another two questions:

Is there a "society for the colorblind" or somesuch?

Do you know many other colorblind people - anyone with the "protean" type (sees only purple as a hue)?

-AmbushBug

[censored]

I too am color-blind, red-green as far as I know. It's usually not a burden, and I'm not quite sure where I'd place myself on the severity scale; probably moderate. I'm fine with colors in isolation, except for shades of blue and purple (sometimes I can tell it's purple, sometimes I can't) and really bright green that looks yellow. Green traffic lights look white to me, or white with a greenish tinge. The vast majority of the time, though, I can identify colors without any impediments.

As far as clothes go, I've only got like one shirt with really strong coloring. It's really, really, really bright orange. :D

[shep proudfoot]

Does your world look like a 1950s TV show?

[j.c.]

Never, for instance, ask me to separate the ripe bananas from the underripe ones.

Can't you do it by smell and feel?

My serious question is, does this make it difficult to play PS2 games?

[Broomstick]

I decided this thread wouldn't be complete without a colorblind woman.... so here I am! TA-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I'm "green deficient", but only a little bit. I see red just fine, and some shades of green are definitly GREEN, but many other shades of green look yellow, blue, or gray to me.

For instance, there's that dark green color they're using on cars and SUV's these days. Last year when I met someone off the Internet (actually, from this site) at a certain location he told me to look for a "green Ford Exploder". He had no way of knowing that, to me, his SUV was not green at all but dark grey. Colors described as "teal" and "turquoise" all look blue to me. Light greens may look yellow to me. I have a coat I'm told is green but it looks light brown to me (let's call it "khaki", how about it?).

I found out I was colorblind when I took my vision test for my pilot's license. Wow, was I surprised! I had earned an art degree and never knew!

Street lights are not usually a problem. Some do appear more blue than green to me, but since I can distinguish them from the reds and yellows easily it's a non-issue. Green lights at night can get "lost" in white background lights, but, again, the yellows and reds jump out so I know when to slow down and stop. They recently installed some new traffic lights near me and as I was driving out there one day I said "WOW! Those lights are really green and my husband looked at me weird and said "Uh, yeah..." - but, you see, to me those lights were much more green than traffic lights usually are to me.

About the only other annoyance is that the air navigation charts for my area are bluish (to me at least) and when my flight instructor used a yellow highlighter to mark a course the resulting "green" disappeared into blue again - it was invisible to me. So I went out an bought an orange highlighter. End of problem.

When clothes shopping I either stick to "safe" colors or bring the husband along (his color vision is normal).

As for that website chart - At first glance I thought the little chart was the same as the big chart, but when I really looked at it I realized the little chart was "washed out". I have, once or twice, had problems with websites - usually those using a lot of pastals or colors of similar contrast. But since my color vision is only slightly off it's not a huge issue for me.

[Broomstick]

Oh, forgot one annoying thing - but it has nothing to do with what I see.

There are lots of folks who absolutely believe that women can't be colorblind. So I have been accused of faking, seeking attention, and being a transsexual. The first two are irritating, the latter amusing.

[censored]

My mother and grandmother are colorblind.

[Hermann Cheruscan]

I first noticed I was colorblind when my mother would walk me to school and she would tell me to "go" on the green light. Well, the green light didn't look like green, it looked white.

Even today, the green light looks like a regular white light.

[Omniscient]

Originally posted by SkipMagic
Bright green almost always looks like a yellow to me; same with buff and ivory. A traffic light green generally looks white to me. Heck, off-white looks white to me. Auntie em says I'm pink, but I still fill out "White" on those census forms.


First question, and I pray this isn't something stupid I'm missing, what the hell is "buff"?

Second question, how can someone be "slightly" colorblind? I admit to knowing nothing about the boilogy involved, but I assumed that either your red perceiving rods (or are those cones?) work or they don't. What makes one person "slightly" red/green color blind versus someone who's "completely" red/green color blind? Where does the former have ability that the latter doesn't exactly? Is it seeing shades of the same color, or resolution of objects or what?

[Broomstick]

I actually went out and researched this when I was diagnosed.

There are several forms of colorblindness. Some occur when a particular type of cone is non-functional, and when that happens the person does not perceive that color at all. So a person with that form of red/green color blindness will not see green at all - these are the people who look at a green traffic light and say it looks like a white light. That sort is usually a sex-linked trait on the X chromosome, meaning it is far more common in men than women (although there are a very small percentage of women who get a double-whammy of defective X and have the problem). However, achromatopsia (which I probably misspelled), a condition where none of the cones work leaving a person with monochromatic vision and extreme sensitivity to bright light, is not sex-linked and occurs equally often in males and females. It's a lot rarer than the sex-linked varieties.

There are also forms of colorblindness where a particular cone still reacts to a color, but not normally. This may have a fancy name like deuteranmalous trichromacy, which is an ornate way of saying "the green sensor is a tad out of whack". Thus, they still perceive green when the color is what is called "saturated", meaning very strongly green. So the cones are there, and either they're not operating quite as well as they should, or maybe some are working and some are not. These are the folks who look at a green traffic light and say "blue".

Women who are colorblind are more likely to be of the "partial" sort than men are. Which has led to some folks theorizing the following: You see, you really need only one working X chromosome in a cell. In men, they only have the one, so that's the one that's working. In women, each cell has two, so the body shuts one down. Which one is chosen at random in any given cell. So it may be that the "slightly" colorblind women are carriers of the trait on one X chromosome where by random chance, enough of the X's in eye cells with the defect are operating (instead of the non-defective) that only a protion of the green cones are operating. So... maybe 50% are operating instead of 100% Or maybe 75%, or 30%. The result being the woman can see really really obvious greens but in pastels or in "blue-greens", "yellow-greens" and "greenish-browns" there's not enough green to trigger their cones, resulting in a person who can perceive green but for whom various shades of green will be "off" from what the majority of the population perceives.

But since there some men who fall into the "slightly colorblind" category, there's probably a distinct gene that codes for slightly defective cones as well.

And it isn't always red/green that's affected, there are other colors that can be affected. Like blue/yellow.

So the whole matter is a little more complicated than my high school biology textbook led me to believe.

[SkipMagic]

shep proudfoot: No, my world doesn't look like a 1950s' television show; however if I don't stop the cats from running over auntie em's head and butt whenever she spends the night, she's warned me that we'll live like a 1950s' television couple.

Separate beds. :( (It might be worth it, though, if for one evening I get to see her cook dinner in a dress and pearls. :p)

j.c.: You know, I've been dealt a couple of body parts that don't fully function (stop that!); my nose ain't a hundred percent, either. So when it comes to the smell (stink) of bananas, (and spoiled milk, dead skunk, stink bugs and dog poop, etc...) I can't smell 'em. Of course, I suspect that my lack of canine-quality nosing abouts is really a result of year 'round allergies. (Not that I'm complaining--I mean, who wants to invite dog poop into his life?)

Broomstick: Yay! You know, as soon as I saw your name in this thread, I was hoping you'd let us know how being color-blind affected your flying. It doesn't seem like it's been a problem at all. As far as you know, is there a level of color-blindness that would keep a person from getting his/her pilot's license? Could, for example, those people who are completely color-blind get a license?

I've met only one female who was color-blind, but that was years ago and in high school. It doesn't show up that often, as you inferred, but let me say that I'm happy that good ol' Ma Nature afflicts her little girls, too. ;)

Omniscient: The first time I encountered buff as a color was when I was working at OfficeMax in their copy center and saw Xerox's pastel "buff" as a color paper option. Like I said, it looks like ivory to me, but maybe someone else may be able to describe it better. Go to
this page (http://www.innovativemedical.net/descript.html) and you'll see some buff-colored items at the beginning.

I'm not totally sure about the biology involved myself, either. Initially they tell the layperson that there are only a few types of color-blindness (red/green, blue/yellow, etc...), but like almost all things biological, I'm sure there are more degrees involved than mentioned. I do know that when I volunteer that I am either slightly or partly color-blind, I'm just saying that I'm not totally color-blind and can see most colors.

[SkipMagic]

Or, what Broomstick just went out and researched. See? You just need to ask an intelligent color-blind person. :)

[Daftbugger]

I had a colour blind house mate. The only problem we had was playing Trivial Pursuit. 'I'll have a green question, please' You what!! Which ones that again??

[Broomstick]

Originally posted by SkipMagic
Broomstick: Yay! You know, as soon as I saw your name in this thread, I was hoping you'd let us know how being color-blind affected your flying. It doesn't seem like it's been a problem at all. As far as you know, is there a level of color-blindness that would keep a person from getting his/her pilot's license? Could, for example, those people who are completely color-blind get a license?The rules depend in part on where you live. In many countries any visual defect - including color defects - can bar you from a pilot's license.

Here in the United States the rule is actually written that as long as you can perceive colors well enough to perform your airman's duties you can fly. Note, the US regs do not say anything about whether or not your perception matches anyone else's, only that you can distinguish colors well enough not to mistake one for another (if you really want the actual reg I can quote it for you)

So... upon diagnosis my flight doc sent a letter to the FAA saying I had this little problem but asking for me to take an additional test to get limitations waived (more on those in a moment). The particular test I took involved me standing on a hill several hundred feet away from an air traffic control tower while they flashed colored lights at me. I just had to tell the nice FAA man standing next to me which colors were which. Which I was able to do. So even though some of what the FAA calls "green" I see as blue, it's a separate and distinct blue from other blues used in aviation lighting, therefore I can understand whatever signals, lights, etc. are used and I was declared fit to fly. Specifically, they gave me a piece of paper called a SODA (Statement of Demonstrated Ability) saying that even though I was colorblind I could still distinguish colors enough to be safe.

What if I hadn't passed the test? Under US rules I would not have been permitted to fly at night or "where light signals are required". Technically, that wouldn't stop me from getting a commercial license and earning my living flying - so long as my flying job did not require flying at night. With a SODA I can fly anything I can afford, whenever I want. There are a number of colorblind pilots doing it for a living out there, a couple are even working for passenger airlines according to rumor.

In actual practice -- it can be a little harder for me to spot the airport beacons at night. That's about the only difference. I tend to spot them a little later than most other pilots. So I work hard on the navigational skills and maintaining situational awareness. No problems spotting the navigation lights on other planes, or obeying light signals from towers on the rare occassion that's been done when I'm flying. It's actually easier for me to pick out the light signals at night than in the daytime.

As for someone completely colorblind... the visual defects resulting in monochrome vision usually cause other visual defects. In particular, achromotopsia results in intolerance to daylight and visual acuity that's so diminished as to leave the person legally blind. These folks can't drive a car safely, much less fly an airplane. That's not due to lack of color vision, though, that's due to other visual defects that occur with their particular condition.

However, if some exceedingly rare thing caused a person to have monochrome vision, yet left them still able to tolerate daylight, their vision correctable to 20/40 or better, and didn't cause any other neurological defects... then I don't see anything in the regulations that would ban them from flying in the United States. But in that case no flying at night or via light signals from a control tower.

So... I get a little cranked when I see websites that declare "colorblind people can't be pilots" because it ain't true. I have the paperwork to prove it. On the flip side, I would caution any colorblind person considering flight training that there are a few extra hoops for them to jump through.

[censored]

Originally posted by Broomstick
So a person with that form of red/green color blindness will not see green at all - these are the people who look at a green traffic light and say it looks like a white light.

Most traffic lights look white or slightly-greenish white to me, but I can definitely see green. Not sure where this fits in to the latin-definition-soup. :smack:

[Zyada]

I thought these would be of interest:

http://www.yorku.ca/eye/specsens.htm
http://www.photo.net/photo/edscott/vis00010.htm

These both show the same graph in slightly different variations. The graph is a graph of how the three types of cones(plus the rods in the first link) react to different wavelengths of light. The graph on the second page is about halfway down the page (I prefer its graph - the first link's graph is "normalized")

The brain processes color by analyzing and integrating the output of each cone type. In the most common form of color blindness, the green cones would be lacking and the middle curve would disappear. Since the green is almost redundant, most colors can still be distinguished, but near the red end the colors would lack the differentiating factor of the green cones.

[SkipMagic]

Sorry I missed your post the last few days, Broomstick! But, thank you for that excellent information!

[Broomstick]

One more thing about the flying -

At certain times of the year, usually spring and fall, I seem to find it easier to spot turf runways than most other pilots. My latest theory is that in some circumstances where everyone else is seeing a green runway on a green background, with everything shades of green, I may be seeing something more like different colors. But it's a pretty subtle effect.

[E-Sabbath]

Broomstick, my theory is that your eyes are more sensitive to texture, rather than to color. Not that you can see it better, but you pick up on it better as a clue.

I've found that a 15 percent gray hue on my eyeglasses lets me seperate and define things a lot better.

[SkipMagic]

But at a great height, E-Sabbath, doesn't all texture look alike?

And didn't someone mention that color-blind people are great (in some cases) in picking out those who are camouflaged?

I mean, for a lot of camouflage, it doesn't work with me. I've always wondered how, for the most part, people are fooled by such a thing. What do you think?

[E-Sabbath]

I'd have to disagree, Skip, the aggregate texture caused by short grass versus the texture of tall grass is easy for me to pick out at altitude. (Ultralights only)

[Satisfying Andy Licious]

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[Broomstick]

Originally posted by SkipMagic
But at a great height, E-Sabbath, doesn't all texture look alike?I'm not E-Sabbath, but I'll butt in anyway.

To the untrained eye textures at altitude tend to look alike, and certainly above a certain point they will. But at the altitudes an ultralight flies - or the ones most unpressurized planes fly at - visible textures do exist. At 3000 feet most pilots can distinguish different crops in fields, wet vs. dry fields, bushes vs. trees, deep vs. shallow water, concrete vs. asphalt, and so forth.

And didn't someone mention that color-blind people are great (in some cases) in picking out those who are camouflaged?

I mean, for a lot of camouflage, it doesn't work with me. I've always wondered how, for the most part, people are fooled by such a thing. What do you think?I think you're colorblind, Skip.

In WWII the red-green colorblind were recruited specifically to look for camoflagued troops and equipment. The mottled camo is designed to work on people of normal vision. If your color vision isn't normal, you are less likely to be fooled. Since my color vision is almost (but not quite) normal camo often (but not always) does work on me - but not always.

Nowadays I think they use thermal imaging to spot folks hiding under mottled tarps. >sigh< Another talent made obsolete by technology.

Folks who are colorblind may pay a little more attention to textures,shapes, and shading that those with normal color vision, which also gives them slightly different spotting skills than the normally sighted. Oliver Sachs addresses some of these questions in Island of the Colorblind.

[SkipMagic]

Satisfying Andy Licious: That, my friend, was beautiful! Any time someone wants to shower my thread(s) with happy face art, go right ahead! :)

Broomstick and E-Sabbath: I probably should have made it clearer that when it comes to texture at greater heights, I have no more experience than vaguely staring out an airplane's passenger window. But I'll be winging out to LA here pretty soon, so I'll be paying more attention to the texture as we take off and land. (I'm sure I'll be saying, "Well, duh!")

As for the camouflage, I didn't know if the failure was because of me being color-blind or maybe I just wasn't viewing the camouflaged person(s) in the appropriate setting for the camouflage colors.

It's good to know that if Klatu and Gort ever land to take our electricity away (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0043456), I'll be considered a secret anti-camouflage weapon again.

Yay for job security!

[Satisfying Andy Licious]

Originally posted by SkipMagic
Satisfying Andy Licious: That, my friend, was beautiful! Any time someone wants to shower my thread(s) with happy face art, go right ahead! :)

Thanks, Skip. Humor aside, I've learned a lot of interesting things from this thread.