Sometimes, optical illusions can serve a purpose. These images might seem familiar to you; look closely. Do they remind you of anything? If you have a driving license, or attended a medical exam at some point in your life, there is a big chance you encountered these during the process. Attached on your left, and below you may find some examples of color blindness test used for testing if person is partially of fully color blind.
If the numbers don’t jump out at you immediately, if you have hard time distinguishing the colors apart, or if you aren’t able to easily distinguish at least a vague guess as to what the number is, then you my friend are unfortunately – color blind.
A version of this test can be seen used in the film Little Miss Sunshine, in which a small girl is playing with the vision test chart with her brother. He is not able to see the numbers, or tell the different colors apart well enough to distinguish the numbers. The boy’s goal was to be a pilot, so when he is made aware that he’s colorblind, the poor kid has a small nervous breakdown. As we already stated, color blindness, or color vision deficiency, is the inability to perceive differences between some of the colors that others can distinguish. It is most often of genetic nature, but may also occur because of the eye, nerve, or brain damage, or due to exposure to certain chemicals.
Before we proceed onto our next example, here is a little history lesson: The English chemist John Dalton published the first scientific paper on the subject in 1798, “Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colors” after the realization of his own color blindness. Because of Dalton’s work, the condition is sometimes called daltonism, although this term is now used for a specific type of color blindness, called deuteranopia. Below you may see the example how one that is colorblind can’t distinguish the numbers on the card. Don’t be mistaken, color blind people don’t see everything in black and white, I just gave this as a guideline so you can understand their inability.
Color blindness is not the swapping of colors in the observer’s eyes. Grass is never red, and stop signs are never green. The color impaired do not learn to call red “green” and vice versa. However, dichromats often confuse red and green items. For example, they may find it difficult to distinguish a Braeburn from a Granny Smith and in some cases, the red and green of a traffic light without other clues (e.g., shape or location). This is demonstrated in this simulation of the two types of apple as viewed by a trichromat or by a dichromat.
In certain situations, color blindness is classed as a disability. However, color blind people have some advantages over people with normal color vision as well! There are some studies which conclude that color blind individuals are better at penetrating certain camouflages.
On your left, you may see another color vision test card. This one is pretty hard, as some individuals with perfect vision may have problems seeing the number inside it – it is 56 if I’m not mistaken.
Hope we learned something useful today. Before I conclude this article, there are some more vision test examples for you to enjoy:
And then some more… Examples below are much bigger in size. If you had no problem recognizing previous numbers, but have more problem distinguishing these, don’t be afraid – it has nothing to do with color blindness. Probably its just that your eyes can’t capture the whole image at once.
This post was written by Vurdlak, with additional help from Vernon Southward of Macro Photography. If you would like to have your article appear on Mighty Optical Illusions as well, feel free to contact us.
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Nice movie. I found it pretty funny when the guy realize he can’t see colors XD though a little bit sad for him ! Nice site
Interesting article! Just so people know, the first large image is not a number, you have to follow the line to the other side.
Interesting! but this is sort of leaving the color blind in your audience hanging… what are they supposed to say? :) – I actually had a doctor tell me that I wasn’t color blind, but that I was color ignorant! I don’t go to him anymore.
I am completely green/red colorblind, can’t see a lot of numbers and the Apples are exactly the same for me.
very cool illusions!i!i!i!i!I!I! =)
little overboard on all the illusions don’t ya think??????
watever still very cool
Wow I never looked at them as illusions, nice =D
as someone who is colour bind… it’s so unfair I can’t see any of these… well except the last one is 12…
also if you meet someone who is colour blind don’t ask what colour something is it very annoying
am i supposed to see the numbers in black and white? i can see everything else perfectly thought.(even the 56)
My Dad was color blind with blue and green. Thought he bought a blue car until he got home and my Mom told him it was green. That one that you said was hard, I can’t see. All the rest I can see fine.
This article is really interesting.
I’m not colour blind but I think there could be problems if I was.
Ken I am color blind also, but unlike you I am patient with people and just tell them I dont know what color it is. Don’t act you have been afflicted with some kind of disease. You will never know what you are missing, so no need to cry about it. Just suck it up and enjoy the benefits of seeing the way we do. I can tell people’s eye color or clothes color even in a BW film. I enjoy not being about to the be annoyed becuase a film is in BW. I normally can’t tell until someone says something about a flick being in BW. But it gives me alot better vision, night especially.
my dad serinaded my mum with the song “brown-eyed girl”. she has blue eyes. he will never live it down.
the first one is a five i think
All right, maybe I am just ignorant, but I’m confused about what Ellen said.
If her dad is color blind with blue and green, and he bought a green car, even if it looked blue to him, wouldn’t he still know the color as green? Because he’s seen blue as green his entire life, wouldn’t he look at the car that looks blue and think, “That car is green”?
I don’t know if I’m getting my point across. And I don’t know anyone that is color blind, so I really can’t say I know what I’m talking about, I’m just confused by that. Someone let me know if I’m making any sense!
And great site, I love it, these are fun!
Well I’m actually color blind, but its kinda strange, cuz I can see color, and I can tell the apples apart, but I can’t see the stupid circles. Except for the first one which everyone tells me is a 5 while I see a 2. Its actually pretty funny. Anyway, cool stuff.
I know exactly what you’re asking, I’ve wondered the same thing too, like if they see something as blue but their whole life they were told that color was green, then wouldnt they perceive all things that non-color blind people see as blue to be green?
Vanessa, being color blind means that it is either very difficult to near impossible to distinguish between different colors. It is not that he think one is the other and vice versa but that they both register in his mind as the same thing. I guess (because I am not color blind) it would be like looking at two objects thinking they are red and then someone tells you that one of them is green.
Nice, but wouldnt all te color blind readers who dont kno that they are cb be all “Whaa….”
Anyways, nice so-called illusin
I’d forgotten about these tests, they’re always fascinating. Apparently I have perfect colour vision so I find it difficult to recognise that many people just cannot see the ‘hidden’ symbols. Never try to play ‘Mastermind’ with a colour-blind peron – it’s quite frustrating!!!
Great. Actually, I am colour blind but have no real problems to see the 56 while you say it should be hard. On teh other hand, I can just see about 2 or 3 of ll the other numbers,
If you are interested by the way, I might have some links to inverse colour blindness tests (only visible if you actually are colour blind) somewhere.
Vanessa:
Your question was partially answered. If you see green as blue, that means that you see green as blue AND that you see blue as blue. Calling all blue things “green” would not make sense because you would probably make the same mistake the other way around…
PS:
The author is referring to colour blindness tests for drivers licenses. I totally miss why that would be done (it is not done over here)…
Finally, something worth celebrating over. I’ve been colorblind all my life, since i was a kid. Im 26 now, and I’ve tried out for many “goverment” position, and have been denied because Im unable to see red and green. It feels good to know, “we’re” able to see things “normal” color vision people can’t.
I have heard somewhere that only men are color blind, women don’t usffer this, and that the rate of color blindness in men is 1 in 12. Never looked it up to see whether it was actually true or not.
If you see a 5 in the first circle you probably won’t have a problem in seeing colors. If you want to see the 2 like Bnwchbammer, copy the picture into a photo editing program or Word and change the colors into grayscale and you will see the 2 appear.
The other circles don’t have this hidden feature. The first circle gives always an answer to the question: what do you see?. By doing this you can avoid wrong out comings in a colorblindness test, if somebody does not recognizing the picture (like the bigger circles).
First thing, I really love this site!
Both my father and my son are color blind, primarily red-green. It’s not that the colors are “switched”, but that they both look the same. My son told me that the biggest problem that he has is driving through residential neighborhoods. The red of the stop signs blends in with the green of the grass and other landscaping. He has to look for the white letters and outline of the stop sign instead. Its kind of like when you put on tinted sunglasses. The colors get distorted, and don’t look the same as what you’re used to seeing.
About 20 years ago, I took my young son to our opthlomologist for a routine exam, since his teacher thought he was having trouble seeing in school. I asked for a color blindness test, which the doctor was reluctant to perform, saying “Why? If he has color blindness, there’s nothing you can do about it.” I insisted, and while Joey passed the test, I was looking over his shoulder and had difficulty with a number of the images. In my case, I have trouble differentiating different shades of dark red.
This was very interesting to read…
Wow. Outstanding article and comments.
I am very impressed by how personal this was. I can see full color but i wear glasses, so I take this colorblind test every yr (its common practice at my annual eye doctor checkup).
They also have a couple circles that look like they should be a number, but are actually gibberish (i.e. random specks of diff colors, assorted to simply “throw off” the viewer).
Another test is a sort of 3d looking fly or insect. Im not sure what it tests but they make me look at it every year.
I would absolutely LOVE to see the inverse pictures, so I could maybe widen my perspective as to what colorblindness is like (obviously I am NOT saying that I could ever fully understand”).
I really like the black and white versions of the 10 and 37 bc at least we can experience the inability to differentiat colors. its very strange actually, but my mind almost “outlines” the number that i see in my periphery (from the colored copy sitting adjacent)
OH WOW, i just posted that anon post…
I found the coolest “inverse color-blind” pic. I cant see the pattern!!!!! HAHAHA
its crazy wierd. But they explain as you look at one corner or the other, your periphery may be able to decipher something.
I def think i see a circle pattern of some sort in the middle of the pic with red and pink gradient….
HERES THE LINK-I found it off of some I-am-bored page or something…check it out, very cool
http://www.cs.unm.edu/~aaron/creative/colorTest.htm
ok so theres also a link at the bottom that shows the “answers” to what the colorblind people CAN see and what the full-color people CANNOT see.
I think I faintly saw the curved top of the number in the top pic, bc it is almost entirely in the RED portion. But i was wrong…and i couldnt see anything in the bottom pic…very wierd stuff
is i just me or is the first hard to see i don’t think im color blind but i had to see the others before i realized it was a number
ok… thats weird. i see all of them except the “56″, i see the first one as a 2 not a five.. and i dont have a clue how it could be a five.
in the link that an anonymous gave for colour blind pics i can see the 6 in the first one.. and something like a circle with maybe som more stuff in it in the second.
am i both color blind and normal colour vision?
and i am color ingnorant. i dont know any names i just see what i can see :P
I find the first one tough. At normal distnce from my monitor it looks like a 5 but maybe not… I back away and it is clearly (at least to me) a 2.
Great post.
I’m not color-blind. In fact I’m exactly the opposite! I’m a child genius! Back when I was four years old, I took an I.Q. test and beat Ole-Mr.-Emc2! Before I moved to Michigan, I was in Florida, and whenever a space shuttle was launched, I could actually make out the wings and other partss of the space shuttle. The numbers just pop right out at me!
@28 / Anonymous
The 3d fly test (where they have you try to grab the wings, etc.) is actually testing depth-perception.
I'm partially colorblind. Still not clear on the all the colors yet. Reading some of the comments I noticed a few people aren't exactly clear as to what a (partially) colorblind person sees. For me almost all reds and oranges look exactly the same to me. Not all shades but most. the same goes for some greens and blues, and even black, dark green & blue look the same. It's also not always the same, meaning when I get my reds and oranges mixed up it doesn't mean I always see orange as red sometimes I see red as orange as well. For example I can look at 1 red & 1 orange object and see them both as red, but looking at a different pair of objects (still 1 red & 1 orange) I'll see them both as orange. It's also impossible to know when your right or wrong without someone elses help. I've been colorblind my entire life and didn't know it at all until I was about 19yrs old.
ummmm…..is it weird that instead of a 5 or a 2 I saw an 8 in the first one?I can see colors perfect but, I can’t see a five…If I try I can see a 2 but not the five.How weird is that?
I am color blind, cant see 90% of any of the colored dot test numbers. didn’t stop me at all. I went on and got my commercial helicopters licence. I find the movie kinda depicts that its the end of the road since he failed the color blind test. i fail mine each year… have to take it each year when i do an eye and medical exam for the heli licence. after i fail the colored dots tests i take a color blind test called a D15 farnsworth test. basically you have a line up of a dozen colored circles that vary in shades. all you have to do is line them up in order from one transgressing to the last. its a pain that i have to pay for it each year but i can fly by doing it. :)
I’m partially color blind and you know what …. I’m a very successful Graphic Designer… no I’m not gonna run around telling the world and this could be the first time admitting it !! woooow its out LOL
I can see all the numbers fine. At first I saw only the 5 in the first picture, but when someone pointed out that colorblind people see a 2, I looked back at the picture and now i can see both clearly. At the same time. It’s kind of weird.
And also, to the person who sees an 8, I think what you are seeing is the combined shapes of the 5 and the 2. I can see it too.
whats wif da apples?
In the first image I can make out the number 5 reasonably clearly. If I squint slightly, I see only a 2.
Well as I always say, the other mans grass is always a little more orangey-greeny-browny sort of, well it’s hard to say, but sure as hell isn’t green.
Plus, put the answers up, drives me mad not knowing what the answers are.
What an interesting test, the test will help you to find out if you are a blindness or not.
But I have an idea, how if you are adding the answer for every picture so they will know if their answered is correct or not.
if u have ie 7 (if im not mistaken) use the zoom function at bottom left of the browser!
I’m not colourblind at all, but I have myopia coupled with astigmatism.
I noticed the first image too because somebody pointed it out. It is a 5 for me at first glance, but if you really look at it the yellow dots seem to form a two if you take out the 5. Combine both you get 8. :) And I spotted another 2 at the upper right tip of the 5…it’s vague though. I don’t know for the first large image. My eyes easily defocus. I can’t handle stereograms. But try out the FM Hue 100 Test at X-Rite. It gives you your color IQ. Believe it or not I got 0. (Zero is the highest)
http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77®ion=43&lang=en
Goodluck.
I’m a pure deuteranomalous (type 2) dichromatic (seeing only 2 of 3 primary colors), medical jargon for green blind person. The “go” part of a traffic light (and any other pure green light) looks like its dead center white. Its position on a traffic light is just as good a cue as color, but I’ve met a small plane pilot who had the same condition, a disaster waiting to happen!
http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77®ion=43&lang=en this test was horrible… most of the colors in certain lines looked the same. there was almost no hue change. my score was this
Based on your information, below is how your score compares to those of others with similar demographic information.
* Your score: 135
* Gender: Male
* Age range: 16-19
* Best score for your gender and age range: 0
* Highest score for your gender and age range: 1336
i guess i am colorblind
I got 21 on the xrite test for a female in the 30-39 age range.
Women can suffer from colour blindness too, I went to collage with a girl who was red-green colour blind. Because many people believe women can’t get it she suffered a great deal.
It is much rarer in women the in men. As I understand it the gene for the most common type is on the X-chromosome. This will mean that a man will either have a normal copy and be unaffected or he will have a defective copy and be colourblind. A woman has to have two defective copies before she can be colourblind, if she has one bad and one good copy she will have normal vision but will pass the defective gene on to the next generation.
Sorry for the long windedness