Color Blindness

[JLTraveling]

View attachment 656709

I’m sure you’ve seen these color-blind tests floating around online before. My 5-year-old son had a pediatrician appointment today and was given a similar test as part of routine screening. He flunked it big time. He apparently has an inherited visual processing disorder that causes color blindness when certain colors are overlaid on one another, although he can see individual colors just fine.

The funny part of this story is that the pediatrician happens to have the exact same disorder, so we had a color-blind doctor giving a color-blind patient a color-blindness test and the whole thing played out like a Monty Python sketch.

“Okay kiddo, can you see a shape in this area? No?” *turns to me* “Is there a shape there?”

“Now how about on this page? Do you see a shape? No?” *turns to me* “Is there a shape there?”

I might have been more concerned about my child’s newly diagnosed disorder had I not been trying so hard to stifle laughter.

(Btw, my son will be just fine. The doctor said his biggest issue will probably be along the lines of not being the first to see the camouflaged animal among the foliage, but recounted how he went on safari a couple years ago and often was the first to see the camouflaged animal, so he thinks the brain probably has ways of compensating.)

This is hilarious. On another note, it doesn't work as well in photographs, but if you make it to DC at some point, have your son take a look at the Hope Diamond (National Museum of Natural History). There's a button you can push to illuminate it with UV light, and it looks red. But my dad has the exact same version of color blindness as your son and the doctor, and he sees red in the diamond WITHOUT the UV light. Just curious if my dad's just weird, or if it's something with that particular visual processing disorder.

 

[Kimkimba]

My dh is colorblind and the glasses don’t work.

He was a painter when he was younger and is now an electrician.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

This is hilarious. On another note, it doesn't work as well in photographs, but if you make it to DC at some point, have your son take a look at the Hope Diamond (National Museum of Natural History). There's a button you can push to illuminate it with UV light, and it looks red. But my dad has the exact same version of color blindness as your son and the doctor, and he sees red in the diamond WITHOUT the UV light. Just curious if my dad's just weird, or if it's something with that particular visual processing disorder.

Well, conveniently, my engagement ring is made with blue diamonds so we already completed this experiment! (The diamonds are undyed, non-irradiated so they’re chemically identical to the Hope Diamond, just much smaller.) He saw them as blue in both indoor and outdoor light. Conclusion: Your dad’s just weird.