More on Color

You might say that I'm not not colorblind. I wouldn't, but you might.

Yesterday, I mistook a co-worker's dark purple shirt for black. This doesn't happen too often, but it's just common enough to make me think that, while I'm definitely not colorblind, I do seem to be color-slow.

Early on, when my condition was being diagnosed, one of the tests they gave me was a color ordering test. Basically, I had to put a set of colored pegs in rainbow order. I had some time to complete it, and I probably leaned in pretty close to see the pegs, but I did put them in all but perfect order. The one mistake I made, according to the doctor, was one that any perfectly-sighted person might make as well.

Still, when asked to make a quick judgment about color, I make mistakes from time to time. Why?

Well, for one thing, when your brain is used to making stuff up (as mine is, to fill the gaps that the eye can't actually see), it can sometimes go a bit overboard. I've learned not to fully trust my eyes most of the time, especially when there's some kind of a life risk involved, like crossing a busy street. So, naturally, my brain will sometimes assign a color to a shirt that isn't actually there. It usually isn't too far off within the color spectrum, but sighted people get confused anyway.

The other issue is one a friend pointed out many years ago, having to do with peripheral vision. It turns out that in the periphery, the outer corners of your field of vision, everything is in black and white. The center of the vision is meant more for colors and details, and the periphery is meant for tracking movement. You know, kind of like when we were back in the forests, waiting for bears to attack. Not that we're not worried about that now... but I do live in New York City, so the risk is a bit lower.

Anyway, until your brain assigns a color to an object, your peripheral vision won't know what color it is, so the brain makes a guess. I use my periphery more than most people, so naturally, my brain guesses about color more than most. Thus, purple shirts off to the side of me look black.

I'm happy to say that the purple-shirt-wearing colleague was not offended. No one takes offense at being accused of wearing black. Some people might get offended at the reverse, but we can deal with homophobia in a future post... if we really have to.