How do you describe color to a person who has been blind all their lives?

Question

Life can be experienced with all our senses. What other senses can be used to define or describe color?

This question is asking for a description of color, not a scientific experience of color. I imagine that machines perceive things in a particular way; while, people perceive them differently, individually.

Answer 1

I'd use music. Light and airy aria for yellow, melancholy cello solo for maroons or blacks or deep blues, something new-age for green... etc.

Answer 2

Color is a perception based on sight. It can only be known through experience. There is a classic example in the form of a hypothetical black and white world. Someone picks up a book explaining the color 'red.' They learn everything about the color red. They learn the wavelength and frequency and various shades. They learn all the properties that constitute red. However, once they are put into a world of color, the question is, can they determine what color is red? It cannot be done, as the color must be perceived through sight. You can describe smells, touches, sounds, and tastes to other people, but only via comparison to other smells, touches, sounds, and tastes. The old, "It tastes like chicken" anecdote applies here...one could describe frog legs as chicken-like, but if someone had never tasted chicken before, they couldn't understand the flavor. Likewise, it might be possible to explain a color to someone who had seen color before, at which point you could describe various shades ('this room is dandelion--a deep, bright yellow') and the person could catch on.
That scene in 'Mask' when Rocky uses hot rocks and cold rocks and cotton to show red, blue, and white to the blind girl is romantic and sweet. Unfortunately, she won't be able to understand.
Smells and tastes interact, and these senses can sometimes be used to describe the other (think about when someone brings home a greasy bucket of KFC...you smell greasy chicken and can sometimes taste it). Nothing goes with color except sight. Some things can be 'seen' through touch, but color is not one of them.
It might be possible, though I have never heard of the research on it, for computers to sense color through touch. That is, it might be possible for extremely sensitive equipment to feel the wavelength or frequency of photons, but this would require photons to have physical mass, which they don't.
In short, no person can understand color without having the benefit of sight.

Answer 3

I find that I can easily associate colors with feelings. Like the color red to me I associate with anger. Yellow is a happy color. Green is a greedy color. Dark blue feels cold, light blue is comforting.

Answer 4

Maybe you can try the whole "cool colors hot colors spectrum" thing
where the cool colors like the greens and the blues feel cold to touch and hot colors depending on how hot they are feel warmer then the other like red would be really hot...but not so hot that it would burn someones fingers. maybe you can do that but that task is actually really hard all together

Answer 5

I don't have much to add as far as an answer to this question, most ideas have at least already been touched on. What I would like to say is this is an interesting question. I just am not sure how. The reason I think it is interesting is because it attracted many quality answers. You guys are good.

Answer 6

fuzzinutz is right. ...though long winded.lol. thumbs up.

You can't talk about color without talking about sight. They can't have a concept of sight if they've never had it. Textures, smells, emotions, dreams or whatever,... they perceive it differently becuase they can't see!
I don't feel blue when I'm sad or green when I'm sick. We can associate colors with feelings because we can see the colors.

Answer 7

Smell...could be used to describe color...fresh is green...red is meat...blue is water...white is sweet...just close your eyes when you smell things and the first color you get when you smell something is how you discribe it to them...yellow is a warm smell...black is a closed up place that hasn't be entered for a long time...

Answer 8

i believe that the sense of touch would work well. a cool breeze being green, cold ice being blue. a hot flame as red. the warmth of sunshine as yellow etc.

Answer 9

You can taste orange. You can feel the difference between a blue fire and a yellow fire. I don't have that many ideas. I've been smoking green.