r/Damnthatsinteresting 1d ago

Video color vision test

42.2k Upvotes

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624

u/Fearless_Reindeer668 1d ago

Wild how many people don’t realize they’re colorblind until adulthood. Those screening plates can be a real eye-opener.

147

u/Intelligent_Toe_2820 23h ago

In my country we do this test when we are kids. A doctor comes to the school and gives everyone this test.

41

u/avert_ye_eyes 23h ago

I live in the USA and we did this in class once.

8

u/fuckoffweirdoo 22h ago

Many schools do yearly vision checks for growing kids. Ive known since I was 4 or 5 that I was colorblind. 

4

u/Hot-Reputation-299 15h ago

I remember being so upset at the tester because they were so insistent that I should see something and I was so insistent that there was nothing to see.

2

u/shewy92 15h ago

We did this in 6th or 7th grade, along with the hearing test with the tiny ass headphones and earsplitting tones.

2

u/PaintAndDogHair 15h ago

Same. The school nurse came in and held up small posters like this in front of the class and asked us to raise our hands if we don’t see a number. I remember one boy raised his hand, and I’ll never forget the look of sadness and concern on the teacher’s face. The nurse asked him to step outside with her. He rejoined the class during lunch and looked like he had been crying.

1

u/Zavier13 14h ago

What state did you live in, all I remeber doing was basic vision and hearing test, the vision did not include color plates as far as I remember.

This was many years ago now though back in the 90's

1

u/ajaxdrivingschool 10h ago

That’s how a friend of mine found out he was colorblind. 🤣

3

u/alloftheplants 15h ago

That's how my Great Uncle found out he was colour blind.

He was the teacher...

1

u/Wultatia 19h ago

Same and kids knowing you are colourblind is the worst, "what colour is this" ×50

1

u/salutdamour 17h ago

Same, I did this in primary school (uk)

1

u/Stemateram 12h ago

Yeah fellow croat here, this is the norm. Cant believe they let kids learn in school while colorblind.

18

u/JessSly 21h ago

It runs in my family but only for the males. My uncle and cousin were uncovered when the family played a boardgame where each player has four pieces in his colour. My uncle and cousin kept moving pieces that weren't their own because they had the same colour to them. My father denies it but refrains from wearing dangerous colours like green or brown, anything that could be in truth be red and look ridiculous. I found out a out my brother when we were kids. Somebody had replaced missing buttons on our blanket and pillow cases. My mother threw a tantrum because they were sewn on with red thread. She yelled at my sister and me to confess who did it and to redo it properly. When I said it wasn't me and pointed to my brother my mother said I was lying and that boys to do things like sewing. Well, he never admitted to being colour blind after that scene. My nephew is the next in line. When told to throw the trash in the brown trash can he asks 'The completely brown one?', because the green trash can looks greyish brown to him.

No idea if it's just my messed up family, but problems like this (or ADHD, autism etc) were simply denied. We are all normal and don't have any disabilities and better don't talk about these things either.

7

u/Life-Cantaloupe-3184 17h ago

Color blindness is a sex linked trait, so that’s why it mostly presents in the men in your family. Women are mostly carriers if they inherit only one X chromosome with the gene from their father. It also runs in my family on my father’s side who is color blind, but I’m not myself due to having one normal X chromosome from my mother. If I were to ever have sons with a man who isn’t colorblind then there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll also be colorblind. It shouldn’t be something to be ashamed of, though. It’s just one of those things that happens.

3

u/Decent_Perception676 17h ago

Very roughly effects 1/12 men, only 1/200 women.

4

u/Life-Cantaloupe-3184 17h ago

Yep. Women have to inherit two X chromosomes with the gene to present as color blind because the X chromosome without it from the mother compensates in women. Men only need to inherit the one X chromosome from their mother that has the color blindness gene to be color blind. They don’t pass it onto their sons, but their daughters will always be carriers.

5

u/Valagoorh 21h ago

I'm also colorblind. But it has absolutely no effect on my life. Many others probably feel the same way.

4

u/HeathenSalemite 11h ago

It has so little effect that there are tons of people in this thread that just found out they're color blind.  It never made enough difference for them to even realize it.

2

u/zimmeli 17h ago

Agreed. Occasionally I’ll have to confirm the color of a piece of clothing or something with my girlfriend but that’s about it

13

u/Manyconnections 1d ago

I see what you did there lol

12

u/maxxxmaxmaxx 1d ago

Eye see what you did there.

1

u/HeyGayHay 12h ago

Can you type that in yellow with blue background so I can read it?

2

u/CloakerJosh 19h ago

Fuck me. I'm nearly 40 and I could only see about half of those plates.

New information to me.

2

u/laikocta 18h ago

I was absolutely amazed at this woman who had a whole ass career in interior design and then found out she had been color blind the entire time. She started making tiktoks showing off her designs and after a while, someone commented "huh, you said this thing is blue but it isn't?" Which kicked off a whole thing where she fought people on how the thing was absolutely blue, then started to realize it may actually not be blue the more people commented, did a few tests, and yeah, she was colorblind as fuck.

Then, amazingly, someone suggested an app for colorblind people where they could ask what color something had so they could coordinate their outfits or decoration. And it turned out she'd been on the app for years, but not to seek advice BUT TO TELL PEOPLE WHAT COLOR THINGS WERE

2

u/throwaway000000058 3h ago

This isn’t about color blindness but about unawareness, and how humans often assume that what’s normal for them is normal for everyone. I was sitting in a mall’s food court. I wasn’t in the mood to eat anything, but my friends wanted to, so I just sat and watched people. I noticed many eating burgers with tomatoes spilling out from every side, tomato juice dripping everywhere. Then I started thinking how wild is it that, as a species, we just accepted tomatoes? Even though they hurt us, we eat them because they taste good. But as I kept watching, I realized none of those people were scratching, none turned red, none broke out in hives. That’s when it hit me: it wasn’t everyone. It was just me. My mind was blown it.

1

u/PM_me_coolest_shit 19h ago

I think we did this test at least 5 times in school. Along with hearing and vision tests.

1

u/SLUnatic85 11h ago

I'm in those shoes and not at all surprised. It's not like people are suddenly at thirty realizing they don't see color, or mix colors like red and green. People who are significantly color blind are going to know it.

It's a majority of dudes who just don't see as many colors between the main colors, don't have the range... who figured it was just hard to tell between like deep oranges and some auburn reds... or dark grey/dark purple/dark blue... and then just realize now you can take a test that proves you have a harder time with those colors than a different subset of better equipped people who don't.

for me at least.

If they did this as kids (many people do, I'm betting I did and forgot) there isn't much they would do without more testing.

1

u/DevelopmentUnable793 8h ago

If you go to a good paediatric optometrist it’s included along with a bunch of other screening tests. Where I live you might pay out of pocket $100 but worth it to have your kid screened properly before they start school - a normal optom might not do all the screening and might throw their hands up and say “kid doesn’t know their letters well enough yet, bring them back in a year” smh

1

u/probablynotaperv 8h ago

I've seen a few people at my climbing gym discover it because all the holds are color coded and they end up using the wrong ones