Can we discuss colorblindness?

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this thread about what color Captain Kirk’s uniform tunic “really” was, the issue of color perception naturally crops up — http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=801356

And Broomstick mentions a particular kind of colorblindness in these posts —

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19554280

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19574492&postcount=118

So I wanted to jump on that topic to ask more about colorblindness.

I’ve been aware of my own colorblindness my whole life, but I don’t know much about colorblindness and I don’t know whether it’s of a particular type or how common it is or how it compares to other kinds or to “normal” color perception.

When I was a kid, I had trouble telling the brown and green crayons apart if the label was torn off. If I had to grab a crayon out of a pile of them, then I wasn’t sure which was I was getting. However, if I had a brown and green one right next to each other, I could tell them apart, and the colors or the colors you got when scribbling a wide swath or the colors on the paper wrapper (even without the wording) were easier to tell apart.

Often if there’s a green tree with a red fruit, I have to look closely before I can see the fruit. If I get up close, I can see the fruit and the tree are different colors, but at a distance, the red doesn’t stand out for me.

Very light grays and pinks are hard for me to tell apart.

Metallic or shiny greens, browns, bronzes, etc.,—like on cars—are hard for me to tell apart.

The thing that gives me the most trouble is computer monitors. For example, the red and green lines that Google Maps uses to show traffic is very difficult for me. If you put the two colors right next to each other, I can easily tell them apart, but when they’re used only to mark narrow lines, it’s almost impossible for me.

Some light yellows and greens are hard for me to name which is which.

Another computer one—at work we used colors to mark things on a list—gray, light blue, yellow, orange, green. I had a very hard time telling the gray and the green apart if I had to scan down the list.

On my iPhone, in the Settings, there are some switches that light up green when they’re turned on. For a long time, I thought they were orange.

What kind of colorblindness do I have?

What kind of colorblindness do you have?

Let’s talk more about color.

2

I have the Ishihara vision test book at work. I’m not sure if it describes the various types of colorblindness that each plate detects, but I can look.

Google Ishihara and see if you can determine what you have, here’s a little on the Wiki page

3

I believe I’m in the same position as Broomstick, though I’ve never been formally diagnosed (and in fact I was told I was mistaken/making it up in a thread I once started on the SD on the topic) there seems to be a specific range of bluish/greens where I’m not quite seeing colour-normal.

There have been a few occassions where it has cropped up but I’ve brushed it off because I didn’t realise it was a thing, until one day a couple of years ago where I had to package an item of clothing and was stopped by a colleague because I was putting it in the blue pile when it was obviously green, I thought she was kidding and asked several other colleagues who also said it was green, so I took it to the boss and asked what colour it was, "Green’, he replied without hesitation. However to me it was very distinctly blue!

Any effect on my day to day life? Absolutely not, but it does make me wonder what exactly other people are seeing that I’m not. :slight_smile:

4

The only way to answer this question is if you get screened in person for color blindness. Not over the internet, and a description of colors is not useful information as carefully calibrated colors are needed, not descriptors like “blue.” And “screen” means multiple tests; Ishihara can only point you in the right direction.

Text descriptions are also difficult to distinguish from simple color confusions.

Color blindness is usually heritable and sex-linked - does your father report similar symptoms, or your mother’s father (or your mother for that matter, although rare). Most forms of colorblindness involve dysfunction in one of the 3 cone types - either a complete absence or a shift in peak wavelength.

5

Moderator Action

Since part of this is an informal poll about user’s colorblindness, let’s move this to IMHO. This will allow more guesswork and opinion related to the type of colorblindness that the OP has as well. Note that factual information (like the Ishihara test) may of course still be posted.

Moving thread from GQ to IMHO.

6

If you have trouble seeing red fruit on a green tree you probably have the common kind, red-green colorblindness.

7

Right, but there are at least 4 different ways that can be classified*, so that’s why a screening is necessary if someone is curious (some people may not care).

*Protanopia, deuteranopia, protanomaly, deuteranomaly, roughly from most to least severe.

8

Well that shows how much I know. :smack: Personally I might have tritanomaly. I find it a lot harder to tell blues and greens apart than people around me and score outside a standard deviation on color acuity tests.

9

It’s possible although it’s super rare. And not sex-linked like the other ones - inherited on the 7th chromosome IIRC.

10

When I was taking chemistry in university, my titrations never came out right. Really off.

The prof noticed it and thought it was my technique, so he took me aside and we started working on it. It was a red-green titration.

And I just couldn’t do it. When I was watching, there was a lengthy period in-between red and green, where the thing was a murky purple.

The prof said, “You didn’t see a change there?” and I said “greyish-purple.”

He said, “Get your eyes checked for colour-blindness. It crops up sometimes with red-green titrations. I saw a quick change of colour much earlier than you did.” Then he looked at me again and said: “It’s often linked to reddish hair, by the way.”

So the next time I was at the optometrist I told him about it. He had me do the dots tests and they were all fine. He said there might be a very slight boundary issue for me, but if the only time I’d ever noticed it was doing red-green titrations, I’d probably get through life okay.

And I have. :slight_smile:

11

Yes, but is that a problem with seeing green or a problem with seeing red?

12

Well, yeah, but your hair is green.

13

Both, or rather the distinction is a matter of confusion, not a problem with any specific color.

14

Well, yes, but you either have a problem with your green-sensing cone cells or your red sensing ones (if you had a problem with both you’d be seeing in monochrome - a very rare condition, but there are people who possess only blue-sensing cones)

15

I didn’t know I was colorblind until we all did a test in one of my genetics univesity classes. How would you know?? You just assume what you see is the same red or the same green that everyone else sees. But having been properly diagnosed when I was getting my sailing license, it did explain a few things like why I never found autumn leaves particularly lovely, in the same way that everyone else ohhhed and ahhhed over them.

16

Can people read this?

17

Nope. Does it really say something?

18

It says ‘fuck the color blind’ in red dots on a green background.

19

Nice. Anyway, I don’t consider it a disability (I’m not a decorator or an artist). Just a mild inconvenience when gaming and the enemies are shown on the radar in red and the friendlies are shown in green. (Looks around shiftily in the debriefing room, yeah, we ahh, we lost a lot of good men today, right guys?).

20

I can make it out, but that’s largely because I’ve seen it or things like it before and already had a good idea of what it would say.

Also, tweaking the settings on my monitor helps, too.

Only truly effective against those with a non-functioning cone type, us “colorweak” people with shifted peak frequencies can usually read something like that.