could people percieve colors in different ways?

Question

I’ve always wondered if it is possible that everyone might perceive colors in a different way. That is, we are all taught as a child that when we see a certain shade or hue, it’s called “red.” But what if, when I look at an apple and see what I know as red, it looks like what you consider “blue.” So if we both closed our eyes, pictured the apple, and our minds could somehow swap images... yours might appear purple to me.
While the object is reflecting the same pigments, maybe each individual’s eyes or brain compute them in different ways? Can anyone give evidence for why this is or isn’t plausible? Sorry if it sounds crazy, just wondering. =]
(i'd be just as happy to hear opinions as scientific explanations. there's no wrong answer, i just want to hear what people have to say.)

Answer 1

Colors are perceived by the brain, and not by the eyes. If one person's brain perceived a color different, then it's entire possible that an apple could appear in their mind as what someone else would interpret as blue. However, there is no way for a person to describe what they see as color except as "red as an apple" or "red as a firetruck." This doesn't tell you what the color actually looks like in their head. It only confirms that they've been taught to name the color that appears in their mind when they see an apple as "red."

As I said, the mind translates color, not the eyes. The eyes can only capture the image and transfer it to the brain. Because of this, we can never truly define how a person's mind interprets colors, because we can't see into their head. Note, that this kind of altered interpretation is *not* color blindness. People who are color blind do not see switched colors. What they instead have is an inability to perceive certain colors. Thus, when we test someone for color blindness, you're measuring if they can see all of the available colors, and not trying to describe how they see the colors that they do.

A person that perceived colors differently would not be handicapped in any way. They would still say that a firetruck is red, because they've been told their entire lives that a firetruck is red, so the color that they see is automatically "red" in their mind. They would know that trees are green, and that the sky is blue. There would be almost no way to distinguish that they were different, so it's entirely possible that *everyone* perceives colors differently.

There is, however, one thing that could prove that people perceive colors differently. As this difference in color perception would be located in the brain, it's possible that a person's perceptions might somehow change during the course of their life. If this were to happen, a person would suddenly start saying that things that had been blue all of his life was now red, and vice versa. They would still see the entire range of color, so this wouldn't be diagnosed as color blindness, but everything would seem flipped to them. This would be the only way that I think that this kind of hypothesis could be proven. However, I've never heard of anything even remotely similar to this having happened. While I still think the idea is possible, I would have to say that it's not probable, or we'd have seen something that lended credibility to the idea.

Answer 2

This is almost certainly right and wrong at the same time.

What I mean is that we all sense color with the same pigments. And those pigments trigger the same sorts of nerves. So, if you interrupt what a person sees at this level, you get what you always get and you see what you always see.

Now, suppose you go a little deeper. Now you have the primary color experience shaded by emotion and how your particular brain is wired. At this level, things are no longer the same and you would probably not experience the same thing they did.

You can test the first one by getting something you think is hot and asking people if it is hot. You should get pretty good agreement. You can test the second one by asking people to close their eyes. Ask them what they see. Here the responses (other than the null response of 'not much') will likely vary because the major input isn't external but internal and varies with the 'inner' mind.

Answer 3

Not only do I think it is not only possible but rather likely we see colors in different ways. Often wondered this myself.
Now take it a step further. If we can perceive colors differently would we not also percieve other things differently. Tastes, smells, objects.
Perhaps all things.
How can we ever be sure we are seeing the same thing as the guy next to us?
Our perceptions limit our understanding. We assume our perceptions are dependable.
Ever heard of the blind men trying to describe an elephant?

Answer 4

i believe that it is more than likely that people percieve colors very very differently. so if something were blue, it would have a physical property in which it abosrbed all but the blue light wave, blue were tobounce off and stimulate the cones in the eyes. so the eyes recieve thin signal, and release a message to the brain. lets say that the message is symbolized with a one. the one travels through some neurons, passes through the subconscience filters and makes it to the INTERPRITING part of the brain. the one is interprited as this color and goes on to further processing and image building. different people have different brains and thusly could have different interpritations of color just as they have different interpritations of a book, or song. the reason we all call the same thing blue is that from a very young age, somebody points at something with the physical property of blue and tells us that is blue. we will never know for sure, but i do beilve that this si the truth.

Answer 5

Yes,
There are many forms of color blindness. Most people who are color blind perceive colors but not in the same way non-color blind people do. Color blindess often goes undiagnosed because the person has no way to know that what they see isn't normal.

Amongs people who are not color blind though, there is probably little variation in the colors that are seen from one person to the next. We can tell this because of similar eye anatomy. Different people may see things with slightly different tints or shades very often though. Having different amounts of pressure in each eye could cause things in one to have bluer shades and things in the other eye to have yellower shades. People with certain eye conditions such as cateracts can experience a progressive yellowing of their vision as well.

Here's a neat website that will show you what just about any website looks like to someone with certain types of color blindness.

http://colorfilter.wickline.org/?rs=1

Answer 6

If you were a woman I'd want to marry you.

I've always wondered the same thing. Why stop at other people though? Why not dogs? I pick them as only one animal that I like and I'm pretty sure perceive color in some form. Do you know that when dogs smell a cake baking, they smell the individual components like flour, sugar, eggs, butter, even salt.

A question in the same vein;
If you go outside and point into the sky and you were able to travel at infinite speed, and not hit anything solid as we know of space "stuff", what would you finally come to?

Answer 7

Personally I have thought about this before and yes it is plausible that we can percieve colors differently and call them the same thing. There is no real way of knowing what other people see. Along those lines, there is no real way of knowing what people are thinking either. I hate that sort of black box. I wanna read minds lol.

However, we know that items do no change their color from person to person because they always reflect the light the same way. The only thing that could change is people's rods & cones in their eyes.

Answer 8

Most consumer products such as cereal boxes and dvd package art are designed to use appealing colors, and I don't think they would work that well if the designers could not depend on people seeing the same color's that they do.

Also, from an evolutionary standpoint, it would probably not be beneficial to perceive colors differently from other humans.

Answer 9

Absolutely.

Think about a color blind person. When they see what we call "red" it is not the same color in their brain as what you see. But to them, the color they see is allways red.

There are species of monkeys where all the females have different color vision than all of the males. This gives each sex a different advantage when searching the treetops for food and reduces intraspecific competition.

Answer 10

People DO perceive colours in different ways. For instance, there is a woman who, when she wears her boyfriend's blue boxers, while he is away, has an instant orgasm. It happens only with the blue shorts, not with any other color. And blue isn't even his favourite colour. She's clearly perceiving colours differently from the rest of us.