Ishihara cat test

What number do you see in the following picture?



When we went for a walk over the weekend, we were followed by a large dog and a little Dusty camo cat.

This picture reminded me of those round pebbly tests for colorblindness, so I looked up the name just now (Ishihara). I was surprised to also learn that up to eight percent of men may be colorblind. That goes a long way towards proving the theory that men don't talk. Sure they talk, some more than others, but... well, numbers don't lie.

If you'd asked me yesterday, I'd have said that in all my life, I'd only known two colorblind men. One was my grandfather, and when my step-uncle told me about it (during some fairly recent geneological questioning) I was astounded. I was 18 when he died and had never suspected. Never had a clue. Neither he nor my father had ever told me. (And this wasn't some distant grandfather in another state who I only saw once or twice a year. This was Pop, who ate supper with us almost every night of the week.)

The other colorblind man I'd known was the boyfriend of a roommate, and actually it was my (female) roommate who'd told me. Probably when I'd known her for a few months.

Can you imagine knowing a woman for any length of time at all and not knowing that she was colorblind? Only one half of one percent of women are born colorblind, so it's not surprising to never have met one. But to think that up to one in twelve men are colorblind...! Now I can't stop wondering how many colorblind men I may have known. And how they could possibly keep such a thing to themselves.

The article referenced above does go on to say:

From a practical stand point though, many protanomalous and deuteranomalous people breeze through life with very little difficulty doing tasks that require normal color vision. Some may not even be aware that their color perception is in any way different from normal. The only problem they have is passing color vision tests.

I used to have a periwinkle dress that I loved and wore often. You could also call it lavender-blue. I realized that different people called it different colors. I mistakenly called it cornflower blue myself at first, because in truth it was between a cornflower blue and a periwinkle. A dark periwinkle, you might say. But nobody else said that. They only ever said it was purple, or sometimes, blue. People thought I was nuts because I'd always go around asking, "What color would you say this dress was?" But I never did figure out if people called it just "purple" or "blue" due to different color perceptions, or lack of a colorful vocabulary, or what. Maybe they just wanted to get rid of me in a hurry.

Wow, I'm really rambling now. If you've stuck around to read all of this, I really like you a lot, even if you're colorblind and haven't told me.