Althouse: "How well do you see color?"

July 1, 2011

"How well do you see color?"

Test yourself.

(Via Drawn.)

117 comments:

The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/1/11, 3:57 PM
ndspinelli said...: I got 797 which is certainly horrible. I had a woman who worked for me who would give such a good descrpition of the color of a subjects car, or the color of their hair, etc. I'm retarded on color..I mean I'm hue challenged...a good alias.."Hello my name is Hugh Challenged, do you know where your neighbor works?"; 7/1/11, 4:03 PM
Brian O'Connell said...: Hey, I got a 24. They don't say what that means though. And they didn't ask for my address, so I guess they won't be sending a prize.; 7/1/11, 4:05 PM
BuckIV said...: Compared to the scores above my 16 should make me eligible to host an HGTV special.; 7/1/11, 4:06 PM
Anonymous said...: I got a 3; 7/1/11, 4:07 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I was going to answer, "Badly," but I got a 3. So, "Not perfectly."; 7/1/11, 4:07 PM
Fred4Pres said...: Way too much work. I have a patriotic buzz on going. Sorry. I only see Red, White and Blue this weekend. If I want hues, it will be in the explosions I create this weekend.; 7/1/11, 4:09 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: I got an "8". If someone gets a "0" is Althouse going to hire them to pick out her next set of drapes?; 7/1/11, 4:10 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I thought I had done better.

My score: 71; 7/1/11, 4:10 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I was under par..

I'm so proud of myself ;); 7/1/11, 4:13 PM
Scott M said...: Slightly painful. I never went through a fireman/cowboy/etc phase. I wanted to be a fighter pilot from as earlier as I can remember. I didn't realize until around 16 that I was red/green deficient. Bye-bye cockpit...or any other combat arms job period. Kinda sucks when you're in a family who's service spans generations and every man around you has jumped out of planes to kill people.; 7/1/11, 4:13 PM
themightypuck said...: I got a 36. They don't really tell you what it means though. Percentiles would be nice.; 7/1/11, 4:13 PM
virgil xenophon said...: Scored an "eight" also. Lucky number if you're Chinese, LOL.; 7/1/11, 4:14 PM
Michael K said...: I ran out of patience so my 147 was not a true measure but it was good enough for government work. You could spend an hour rearranging those squares. That would be the IQ test part of it.; 7/1/11, 4:17 PM
edutcher said...: 108 out of 1520 - for males over 60.

Not too bad, I suppose.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I got an "8". If someone gets a "0" is Althouse going to hire them to pick out her next set of drapes?

Nah, Ann's BFA probably gets her something in minus territory.; 7/1/11, 4:18 PM
Chip S. said...: Sorry. I only see Red, White and Blue this weekend.

Wait--those weren't the main colors in the test?; 7/1/11, 4:19 PM
gail said...: I got a 52, which I think keeps me solidly in the middle of the bell curve, where I'm just content to be after losing sight in one eye.

I think Unemployment with his/her 3 just discovered a new job skill to list on the resume.

this was a fun time killer in the feels like 105 degree heat; 7/1/11, 4:21 PM
Chip S. said...: From the title, I thought this post was about today's 6th Circuit decision.; 7/1/11, 4:25 PM
Margaret Ball said...: 27 - - not too bad for an old broad, but considering how much time I spend staring at pieces of fabric, cutting them apart, and putting them back together again, I had expected to be in the single digits.; 7/1/11, 4:28 PM
KCFleming said...: My mind said Ack ...no waaaaay! as soon as I saw the instructions.

So I didn't even start.

What's my score?; 7/1/11, 4:30 PM
KLDAVIS said...: 16...despite the terrible monitor and dreadful lighting here in the office.; 7/1/11, 4:32 PM
Meade said...: 8; 7/1/11, 4:33 PM
Meade said...: I could have done better but I choked.; 7/1/11, 4:35 PM
Angie Schultz said...: I got a zero. I should have studied harder!; 7/1/11, 4:36 PM
T J Sawyer said...: I got a 66.

On my laptop.

This test probably reveals more about the quality of the viewer's monitor than anything else.; 7/1/11, 4:36 PM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: 15 for me.; 7/1/11, 4:37 PM
KCFleming said...: Those are all different colors, right?; 7/1/11, 4:38 PM
m stone said...: I always tell people that I'm open-minded and truly color blind.

This proves one.; 7/1/11, 4:39 PM
Indigo Red said...: I got a 51. I was much better in art school, but after an auto accident damaged one eye, color acuity started a downward slide. That's why all my socks are the same color... well, I thought they were the same color. OH, NO!; 7/1/11, 4:42 PM
Anonymous said...: I was gonna say "tl;dr" after the first row, but my curiosity got the better of me and I went back and finished. 33. Meh.; 7/1/11, 4:43 PM
KCFleming said...: The test looks just like the food on the squares of the lunch trays in grade school.

I didn't know what that shit was either.; 7/1/11, 4:43 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: 139 - Low colour acuity.
Not too surprised.; 7/1/11, 4:45 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: 28 and now I have a headace. I might have gotten better but by the time I got to the last bars I was getting eyestrain.

Still. Not too bad.

My mother (now deceased) and brother could never ever do this. They are both color blind.; 7/1/11, 4:46 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Pogo: Those are all different colors, right?

Not only are they all different colors, but they all have individual names (which you should know).; 7/1/11, 4:49 PM
traditionalguy said...: I got 0, which is a perfect score. Good thing I didn't have time to go back and change any answers.; 7/1/11, 4:49 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: I got my 3 on a Chromebook.; 7/1/11, 4:49 PM
KCFleming said...: If I cross my eyes during the test, I see a 3D Gloria Steinem.

Yipe!!!; 7/1/11, 4:50 PM
themightypuck said...: This reminds me of me handing my clearly perfectly tuned guitar to a real musician who strums it, makes a face, a proceeds to tune my guitar.; 7/1/11, 4:52 PM
KCFleming said...: "they all have individual names (which you should know)"

Usually, I just go Hey! There he is! How ya been, dude?

Somebody usually says the name later, and I work it in then.

Man, Magenta, it's been years!; 7/1/11, 4:52 PM
themightypuck said...: My 36 is most likely on the bad side of the bell curve in case anyone is trying to figure out where they stand. I say that because I was diagnosed with mild color blindness many years ago.; 7/1/11, 4:53 PM
Snark said...: I got a 3. That was fun...thanks.; 7/1/11, 4:54 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Pogo: So I didn't even start.

What's my score?

Congratulations, you're now qualified to be President of the United States.; 7/1/11, 4:55 PM
Stephen A. Meigs said...: 4. I'm 44 yr old male.; 7/1/11, 4:58 PM
george said...: I got an 8 as well. I can't believe so many people got the same score.

My errors were in the blue green area. Did anyone with the same score have their errors in a different part of the spectrum?; 7/1/11, 5:00 PM
chuck said...: I scored 26, which was much better than I thought I'd do, as all the women in my life had me convinced that I effectively color blind.; 7/1/11, 5:01 PM
KCFleming said...: 950.

I don't let colors push me around.; 7/1/11, 5:12 PM
Shanna said...: 27, but I probably got lazy on some of the tiny differences. I want a percentile, though!; 7/1/11, 5:14 PM
Anonymous said...: Regarding the state of American politics and jurisprudence Leonard Cohen said it best:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows; 7/1/11, 5:14 PM
themightypuck said...: Everybody knows that the boat is leaking.
Everybody knows that the captain lied.
Everybody's got this awful feeling.
That their father or their dog just died...; 7/1/11, 5:19 PM
Julie C said...: I got a 25 - and now my eyes hurt. Thanks a lot Althouse!; 7/1/11, 5:22 PM
Anonymous said...: I got an 8...; 7/1/11, 5:29 PM
KCFleming said...: I got a rock.; 7/1/11, 5:33 PM
Big Mike said...: 26.; 7/1/11, 5:36 PM
SteveR said...: I got a 58 which is not great but considering I lost interest about half way through and am not so young, I'll take it. Hearing is another matter.; 7/1/11, 5:46 PM
EDM said...: I got a 0; 7/1/11, 5:47 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Wow. I spent about 3 minutes working on the top group before the tedium overwhelmed me. I was no where near the point of being unsure whether there were any more moves on the row or not, my brain just suddenly said to me, "OMG, why would anyone waste their time moving these squares around???"

My score: 797.

wv: ockuslea - the name of the color of the 5th square from the left on the 2nd row.; 7/1/11, 5:57 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Damn, that was a hard test. Got a 39.; 7/1/11, 6:06 PM
BJM said...: A 4 on the Alien gamer, but a 12 on the Dell web surfer.; 7/1/11, 6:07 PM
Seeing Red said...: 16

It was the monitor.

Too dark

That's the ticket.; 7/1/11, 6:08 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Pogo, want any more?; 7/1/11, 6:10 PM
dbp said...: * Your score: 0
* Gender: Male
* Age range: 40-49
* Best score for your gender and age range: 0
* Highest score for your gender and age range: 1520; 7/1/11, 6:13 PM
Phil 314 said...: 93.
So now I need to know if the scale is logarithmic because 93 is a long way from 0 but MUCH better than 1000.

(PS After a while it gets tiresome fine tuning the shades so on a couple rows I said "Good enough"); 7/1/11, 6:15 PM
Martin L. Shoemaker said...: I knew a guy who could score perfect on these tests every single time. He was an automotive design engineer, working in interior trim, and it gave him a lot of job security. They tested everyone in the department twice a year.

I didn't even try taking the test. I scored lousy on it back then, and that was in 1990. No need to see how much worse I've gotten in 20 years.; 7/1/11, 6:18 PM
Phil 314 said...: And I want to know what Palladian got.

Though he's no gay activist he better score pretty high (no I mean "Low") on this test. Just as you want your musicians to have perfect pitch, you want your artists to have "perfect hue".; 7/1/11, 6:18 PM
cold pizza said...: 0. Perfect color vision. I also like to think I can see in black, white AND shades of grey. -cp

wv: "stosiv," what comes after stosiii.; 7/1/11, 6:20 PM
Craig Howard said...: I got 151 -- high score for my demographic is 1520. I think people just hit 'Submit' to get out of the thing when they realize how annoying it is.; 7/1/11, 6:25 PM
Kirk Parker said...: Craig,

Yes, indeed--I already confessed to that. :-); 7/1/11, 6:29 PM
john said...: I got an 83, which I think is not too bad considering I only have a B/W monitor.

Pong anyone?; 7/1/11, 6:30 PM
cold pizza said...: I enjoyed the test. Of course, I work specialty software tech support and put together 5000 piece jigsaw puzzles (after tossing the boxtop into the other room where it won't be a distraction).

I want to see how all the pieces fit, and that's why I like the variation at Althouse. So many different perspectives as each person struggles with the puzzles Ann presents. -cp

wv: "fichmat," the matrix that holds my fich files.; 7/1/11, 6:31 PM
Anonymous said...: I got a 123. I don't get the meaning either. If my group can go to 1520, why is 123 low color acuity?

Does it matter?

When will I stop asking rhetorical questions?; 7/1/11, 6:32 PM
Joanna said...: 36. (Gah, the lines started moving around when I stared at them.); 7/1/11, 6:37 PM
wdnelson93 said...: Pat - Have you watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead? Rhetorical question heaven for question junkies.; 7/1/11, 6:38 PM
Toad Trend said...: I scored a 10 - male age 40-49.

From what I can tell thats pretty good.; 7/1/11, 6:39 PM
KCFleming said...: @Peter

Heh. Are those arranged by color?; 7/1/11, 6:44 PM
galdosiana said...: I got a 4. Apparently my deficient area was the green hues.; 7/1/11, 6:56 PM
Paul Brinkley said...: I got a 4 on a 24" wide screen. I'm 39 years old. My deficiency was apparently in the blue area.

Given my self-ascribed artistic affinity, I'm cool with that.; 7/1/11, 7:02 PM
mdwebneck said...: my score was 39, but I did it in like 30 seconds; 7/1/11, 7:03 PM
Palladian said...: Um, PERFECT COLOR VISION here, baby.

Which is why I'm such a great artist. Which is why y'all should buy my prints!; 7/1/11, 7:04 PM
Bruce said...: I got a zero. I figured it wasn't that hard and that most people probably got a zero. I'm really surprised.; 7/1/11, 7:06 PM
Palladian said...: "And I want to know what Palladian got."

See above.

And thanks for defending my honor in that thread. Until I read your comment, I was convinced everyone thought of me as a radical gay activist. It's terrible the reputation one can get around here when the "loudest" commenters are crazy people with gigantic neurotic hang-ups.; 7/1/11, 7:06 PM
Palladian said...: "I got a zero. I figured it wasn't that hard and that most people probably got a zero. I'm really surprised."

It is amazing. Growing up, I was always astounded how "loose" most people's color perception seemed. When I do freelance design work, I'm still amazed when clients seem to have fundamental flaws in their perceptions of colors, yet insist that I'm the one that is deficient.

"No! We want the greens to be PISTACHIO!"

"Um, this is pistachio green."

"No, it's KELLY GREEN."

"I sampled greens from 20 photographs of pistachio nuts and averaged the results."

"Well then your photographs were wrong. We want pistachio green, like this!"; 7/1/11, 7:13 PM
Anonymous said...: I got 71. I didn't put a lot of effort into it, since all of the squares were bleen, grue, or grey.

Compared to the scores above my 16 should make me eligible to host an HGTV special.

That all depends. Did the colors "pop"?

Guys typically can put names to about twenty colors, anyway (excluding combinations like "yellow-green" and the prefixes "light" and "dark"): black, white, grey, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, brown, tan, pink, purple, and usually turquoise (or cyan, if they're nerds), rust, magenta, and khaki. Oh, and we know "scarlet," but only because of Sherlock Holmes and Gone with the Wind, and we're liable to call it "bright red." Tell us something is "mauve" or "chartreuse" or "cerise" and most of us will just look confused.

If you want to be more specific than that, take a sample down to the paint store and have them scan it.; 7/1/11, 7:21 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/1/11, 7:22 PM
Sal said...: I got 8. They give this test to admissions officers so they can more accurately discriminate, per the 6th Circuit's ruling.; 7/1/11, 7:25 PM
Anonymous said...: I scored a 10 - male age 40-49.

From what I can tell thats pretty good.

I got an 11. And I'm in your demographic, too. I guess that's not too shabby.; 7/1/11, 7:25 PM
Anonymous said...: "Hey, being colorblind should make me a liberal, right? Oh, right, they are the most color conscious motherfuckers on the planet."

They are that.; 7/1/11, 7:28 PM
BJM said...: @Palladian

"Well then your photographs were wrong. We want pistachio green, like this!"

ROTF!!!

Been there.; 7/1/11, 7:29 PM
Mr. Bingley said...: I got an 11 in the 40-49 demographic as well; 7/1/11, 7:35 PM
Toad Trend said...: @kcom

"I got an 11. And I'm in your demographic, too. I guess that's not too shabby."

Good going. Who said colorblindness was a good thing anyways...

@sixtygrit

"Hey, being colorblind should make me a liberal, right? Oh, right, they are the most color conscious motherfuckers on the planet."

Riiiight...liberals are fixated on color. Fixated. Stuck. Obsessive.

Morgan Freeman is right.; 7/1/11, 7:48 PM
ricpic said...: Color is the suffering of light.

--Goethe; 7/1/11, 8:02 PM
Rick Lee said...: 8. I was seriously confident I'd get a perfect score. Oh well.; 7/1/11, 8:26 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: 7, for a 44 year old male.

Much better than I expected.; 7/1/11, 8:30 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Rick Lee: 8. I was seriously confident I'd get a perfect score. Oh well.

Don't worry, all the cool kids got that.; 7/1/11, 8:31 PM
Shanna said...: We want pistachio green, like this!"

Hee!

I am ok with my score. I am just going to blame boredom and my computer's imperfections!; 7/1/11, 8:44 PM
Anonymous said...: 26.

Way too much work, but mesmerizing in a stoner sort of way once you get started.

Afterwards they have you click a button to see how your score compares, but when you click it, it doesn't. Bit of a tease there.; 7/1/11, 9:08 PM
Anonymous said...: wdnelson, hey, I'll have to see that again!

Palladian, that's awesome. Maybe Bruce is a hidden artist?

The Color Test is interesting, too.
http://www.viewzone.com/luscher.html; 7/1/11, 9:17 PM
Anonymous said...: I got a perfect score, but I've always done well on standardized tests.; 7/1/11, 9:41 PM
Skyler said...: I got a 99, which is far better than I expected. I fail all the color vision tests for the miilitary.; 7/1/11, 9:48 PM
Christy said...: I did an embarrassing 145, but consoled myself that I grew weary and hit submit.

I remember doing much better years ago. My excuses ran out, however, when looking at Palladian's perfect arrangement. Didn't look perfect to me. Ergo, I do not see color perfectly. Good thing my wardrobe is mostly black.; 7/1/11, 9:55 PM
Skyler said...: I have to confess I got a 99 by comparing texture and brightness, not color.

I read that they injected some dna or something into the eyes of a monkey and got him to see color as it caused cones to grow in his retina. It is apparently a permanent result.

Some women have a fourth variant of cone that allows them to see an entirely different range of colors.

I want to see that and I want to be able to see infrared. It's coming someday. Why not? If all they need to do is inject something in your eye to let you detect colors, then why not do it. I can't wait to see what I've been missing.; 7/1/11, 9:58 PM
Methadras said...: got an 8, but i work with pantone colors daily. I have the entire pantone color gamut. It's part of my work. Hell, i even have pantone iphone app. I disgust me.; 7/1/11, 10:09 PM
Anonymous said...: 23. Will try again using the larger monitors on the desktop and fresh eyes after I get some sleep.; 7/1/11, 11:02 PM
Anonymous said...: I want to see that and I want to be able to see infrared. It's coming someday. Why not?

During World War II the OSS used people who had had cataract surgery to spot "invisible" UV signal lights, for example, between submarines and observers on shore. Back then the surgeons used glass replacement lenses that didn't filter out ultraviolet the way their original lenses did, and blue cone cells are sensitive to UV. I wouldn't recommend lens replacement surgery just to be able to see in ultraviolet, though.

If all they need to do is inject something in your eye to let you detect colors, then why not do it. I can't wait to see what I've been missing.

If you have defective red-green color vision, I've read that you can learn to distinguish colors fairly quickly (a couple of days) by wearing glasses that have one lens tinted red and one untinted. Your brain learns to interpret the differential inputs from your two eyes as color. I believe the 3-D glasses that use red and cyan lenses will work, too, but people will look at you funny if you walk around wearing them.; 7/1/11, 11:49 PM
Anonymous said...: I got a 0. Perfect color acuity. Given that I work with thread, I guess it helps, huh.; 7/1/11, 11:53 PM
Anga2010 said...: bleh, I got 0.; 7/2/11, 12:25 AM
crosspatch said...: I got a 21 but admit that I didn't really focus on the problem, so to speak.; 7/2/11, 12:27 AM
Sprezzatura said...: My score was four.

On Sunday I'll see my main interior designer (I usully refer to her as the "the lady who picks stuff," because that sounds less lame), so I'll be giving her this test.

She once picked thirty six interior colors for a relatively small house. To my eye many of these colors looked essentially identical. This lady is hated by painters during the summer months. But they love her jobs during the winter (her specifications keep these guys busy during the slow months when exterior painting is impossible).; 7/2/11, 12:48 AM
erictrimmer said...: 8. But I tried hard to get them all right.

I wonder if there is an optical illusion factor in addition to color vision acuity.; 7/2/11, 1:41 AM
mrs whatsit said...: 10. I wanted perfect, though, considering the time I spend with Berol Prismacolors.; 7/2/11, 1:55 AM
Alan said...: 39, male, age 71. Good or bad? Most errors in the oranges.; 7/2/11, 7:16 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I scored 26, which was much better than I thought I'd do, as all the women in my life had me convinced that I effectively color blind."

It was a test of perception, not taste. You can see exactly what 2 colors are, but your idea that they look good together is a different matter.; 7/2/11, 10:03 AM
Unknown said...: It was easy to score a zero, any mismatch jumped out almost 3D. But I still suck at all forms of art.; 7/2/11, 3:37 PM
Sanddog said...: I scored a 7, mostly because I was tired of "refining" the row for perfection.

Seriously, who gives a rip as long as you can see the basic color groups?; 7/2/11, 4:34 PM
Sanddog said...: Taking that test reminded me of a scene from Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House where Myrna Loy was describing the colors she wanted for each room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZwOGVWqHAw; 7/2/11, 4:42 PM
Dan said...: I got a 16, which seems pretty good for people my age, I guess.
Some guy got a perfect score while another 1520.
I guess I can pass the DMV color vision test.; 7/2/11, 6:30 PM
The Dude said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/2/11, 7:50 PM
JimM47 said...: 3. Screwed up the dismal yellow colors.; 7/3/11, 11:36 PM