I can't pass an Ishihara color blindess test yet I have no problems distinguishing colors in every day life.

Question

What's going on here? I am trying to get a government position that requires me not to be color blind. I cannot pass a Ishihara test (see the numbers in the different colored dots). BUT, I have absolutely no problem distinguishing colors in every day life.

Also, on certain websites, they'll show what a certain picture would look like to a normal person, then what it would look like with someone with X kind of color blindess, then what it would look like with someone with Y, then Z, etc. The "normal" picture looks fine to me, and all of the other ones look different. If I really had a defficiency of some sort, wouldn't one of the "color blind" pictures look the same as the "normal" picture to me?

Answer 1

The Ishihara tests do point out defincies in your sight, so you probably are color "deficient." Not everyone is completely color blind, we see colors, just not exactly the way everyone else does.

The cones in your eyes each contain a light sensitive pigment which is sensitive over a range of wavelengths (each visible color is a different wavelength from approximately 400 to 700 nm). Genes contain the coding instructions for these pigments, and if the coding instructions are wrong, then the wrong pigments will be produced, and the cones will be sensitive to different wavelengths of light (resulting in a color deficiency). The colors that we see are completely dependent on the sensitivity ranges of those pigments.

If you can't see the subtle differences in color that is required to pass the Ishihara tests then you probably have a color diffiency... I have a red/green diffiency, yet I have an idea of what I think red and green are, and pick them out correctly "most" of the time. But purple looks like navy blue a lot of times and neon green looks yellow. It's those subtle color differences or color combinations that throw me.

Answer 2

You have a vivid imagination and this is good. Great inventors, explorers all had inventive, imaginative minds. Your friends and acquaintances may consider you over-imaginative and given to fantasy or day-dreaming. So what ? this is a part of your character and charm. You are experiencing considerable difficulty trying to achieve your goals. As a consequence of this you are becoming more and more irritable. Your friends and acquaintances are finding it increasingly more difficult to appease or to reason with you. You are the cause of your own problems. Don't be so impulsive. It is your vacillation that can lead to problems and uncertainties. Ease up a little. There are times of everyone's life when 'compromise' is the name of the game and this is the time, so you have no alternative but to forgo some pleasures for the time being. You are capable of achieving satisfaction through physical activity. At this moment in time you feel as if you have lost the strength of will to contend with existing problems and difficulties which appear to you as deliberate opposition. You are trying to stand your ground but the pressures are intolerable. You would like some co-operation from those around you but it's not forthcoming so you feel that, in its absence, there is nothing you can do to improve the current situation. You would like nothing better than to 'get away from it all'. You would like to break with the present and move on, searching for new conditions and relationships. Your anxiety and stress are results of unfulfilled emotional and perhaps physical needs. You feel that you are not really understood by your nearest and dearest and it is this that prompts you to move on, searching for that so illusive peace of mind.

Answer 3

You, like me, are moderately color blind. If you can't pass the test you really are color blind. I'm red/green color blind. I can still see red and green in all sorts of shades, so this didn't make sense to me either at first. What I've discovered though, is that some reds and greens that are closer to a brownish color, I can't distinguish. We still see colors, but their actual hue to you and me will be different than to someone who is not color blind. This same issue is what kept me out the the JAG Corps. Keep trying though, there may be related work you can do that does not require perfect eyesight. Best of luck.

Answer 4

Try the test below and if you can't see all the numbers and paths, you definitely are colorblind to a certain degree.

But this doesn't mean you have PROBLEMS in everyday life. Maybe you once try to spot red blossoms in a distant green field or tree. I can't or at least have great difficulties, whereas for somebody with normal color vision the red is like a bright light.