Does a person who is color blind know that they are color blind?

Question

How exactly would a person know if he (rarely she) is color blind? Or is it only determined by a optometrist?

Answer 1

Not if isolated. A situation involving others would expose this issue.
You wouldn't need a Dr. unless it was for documentation.

Answer 2

Not unless someone realized they were picking wrong colors. My brother didn't know he was color blind until he was 16 years old and they were learning about anatomy and the textbook had one of those pictures you look at that has tiny dots with two different colors and there is a shape or number or letter in one color and the rest is surrounded by dots of another. He couldn't see the item inside the dotted picture and discovered he was color blind. Color blind people actually don't have any problem with seeing traffic lights, that's a myth. My brother just has problems with browns, greens and reds. Someone could go their entire life not knowing there was anything wrong with their sight.

Answer 3

Color blindness is an inaccurate term for a lack of perceptual sensitivity to certain colors. Absolute color blindness is almost unknow. There are three types of color receptors in our eyes, red, green and blue. We also have black and white receptors. They are more sensitive than the color receptors, that is why we have poor color perception in the dark.

Color blindness comes as a result of a lack of one or more of the types of color receptors. Most color perception defects are for red or green or both. About 10% of males have a color perception defect, but this is rare in females. Red-green color blindness is a result of a lack of red receptors.

Another form of color blindness -- yellow-blue is the second most common form, but it's extremely rare. It is also possible to have the color receptors missing entirely, which would result in black and white vision.

Answer 4

Hi,
I answered a similar question way back.

Someone who is colour blind can still see colours but they cannot differentiate some of them.

Eg. you might have the following sequence:-
RED BLUE BLACK WHITE GREEN YELLOW

A colour blind person might see those colours as:-
RED BLACK BLACK WHITE BLACK YELLOW

But I have always said what makes a colour that colour.

When you were small you looked at the grass and your Mom told you it was green, you looked at a banana an she told you it was yellow.
Someone else looked at the same items and was told the same answers but how do we know what the actual colour either of you saw.

Hard to explain but every time I see blue, I say it is blue, because I have been told so but if you could look at the same colour, as my brain perceives it, you might see white but you have been told that the colour you are seeing is blue so you will say it is blue as well.

The only persons who really know what colours are, are those that have never seen one.
Blind from birth.
The colour that they perceive originates from all their other senses.
You tell them a horse is brown.
That horses colour will register with then from its feel, texture, smell, noise etc.
All their senses will accumulate information to go with that colour.
It will be an untainted colour.

Never to be seen by anyone else or truly described.

Answer 5

Most people (usually males) who are color blind cannot distinguish red and green. Perhaps the biggest problem they have is traffic lights. They have to learn red is on top and green is on the bottom.

From an evolutionary point of view, red/green color distinction came about in our ancestors who lived in the jungle and needed especially to distinguish red fruit amongst green leaves. Humans no longer need to be able to see this difference and may be losing their red/green color sensitivity.

Answer 6

One of my buddies is color blind and he has a really hard time with it in school because the teacher always tells him to look at the red but he can't see red. So, yea, I'd say they know they're color blind.

Answer 7

They usually figure it out when they notice that people don't see colors the same way they do.

I would think their parents would notice this as well, when the kid's very little and colors his/her drawings in unusual colors. My best friend's brother is red-green colorblind and he used to paint grass brown and branches green. That's how her parents started to suspect he was colorblind, but the kid himself was totally oblivious to the fact that he was painting things differently.

Answer 8

I think they generally work out that they don't see colours the way most of us do, at least by adulthood, just by feedback from other people

You would probably get it confirmed by a doctor, though, with those tests that have the numbers hidden in different colour dots.

Answer 9

I think those who are colorblind see specific colors different. One of my friends are colorblind and instead of seeing the color red he see's gray.

Answer 10

Unless it comes up coincidentally somehow, it's usually determined by testing.