Location: On a clear day, I can see Mt. Rainier ... but you can't count on the days to be clear here ...
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Do men really see all the colors that women see?
This is just one of those questions that really makes me wonder ... It's something I'd like to see research work on if it exists somewhere.
We always talk about men being more visual than women, and that seems to be so in the case of motivations, but it seems that men are more prone to disabilities in the key functionings of the visual systems. Men are many times more likely to have various forms of color blindness, for example. But when defining normal functioning, I really wonder if men normally even see all the colors that women see. We joke often about "man colors" and say there are only 8 of them, and when a woman says something like "chartreuse" or "fuchsia," we don't even know what she's talking about (or so we joke). I actually wonder if there is something to that because distinctions in color seem to me to be a much bigger part of women's communication than it is a part of most men's communication.
So do I hang out in the wrong places? or do other people wonder about the same thing? What do you think? Do women see more color distinctions than men? Does anybody know of any research work that has been done in this area?
Is there any Ph.D. student on here looking for an idea for research in this area?
Re: Do men really see all the colors that women see?
Considering how many male artists and painters there have always been, I don't believe that men as a whole see fewer colors. And if you ever meet with a male interior designer, that question wouldn't come up, either. Scuba divers, too, will tell you all about the colorful fish in the reefs.
I think most men don't care so much as to categorize them in more subtle groups and shades.
Re: Do men really see all the colors that women see?
There are differences in some women's eyes that some scientists believe to allow them to see color with more detail. There is a term for it, but I'm drawing a blank ... I believe it is called a tetrachromat, or a women who sees in four color ranges instead of three. It is linked to the X chromosome. But I think women tend to have more cone-receptors in their eyes, in general, which allow them to distinguish colors with better clarity than men.
I'm red-green color blind. Try as hard as I might, I have no idea why my wife says that her underwear are usually pink - to me, they're light tan. Ok, I admit that it my most nerdy trait, but I'm a junkie for Scientific American.
Location: On a clear day, I can see Mt. Rainier ... but you can't count on the days to be clear here ...
Posts: 1,862
Re: Do men really see all the colors that women see?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Halien
I'm red-green color blind. Try as hard as I might, I have no idea why my wife says that her underwear are usually pink - to me, they're light tan. Ok, I admit that it my most nerdy trait, but I'm a junkie for Scientific American.
When I was in field engineering (software engineering on-site with customers in my case), I was absolutely castigated on more than one occasion by men who had red-green colorblindness. Color coding made it impossible for them to make full use of some of our development tools. I did listen to them, and took it back to development so we could consider adding things like shapes to help them out. What we had done previously was add an option for labels, which helped, but labels take time to read and that took away the efficiency that was intended with the color coding. The shapes seemed to help restore a lot more of the efficiency for the guys with red-green colorblindness.
One of these guys told me he first realized he was colorblind in the second grade when his teacher sent him to the office for not cooperating. Their exercise was about coloring, and he kept mixing up the red and green crayons. He couldn't see there was any difference, and the labels had been torn off.
Your other statement is what I really was wondering about, but I don't have any scientific material to back up things I suspected like a difference in density of cones in the retinas. I've also heard about a trait in some women that allow them to see many times more colors than most people, but again, all I have is unscientific material on that, and I'm always dubious about such claims. It seems that in at least come cases, women are able to see many more colors, and that makes me wonder if it is common. I'd be very interested in reading about such things as perception tests and cone density if you have a link or reference for me.
If it is just that we don't categorize the colors the same, then that opens an entirely new range of questions up to me about why that would be, especially when we seem to be so powerfully attached to the visual senses in so many other ways.
Location: On a clear day, I can see Mt. Rainier ... but you can't count on the days to be clear here ...
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Re: Do men really see all the colors that women see?
Quote:
Originally Posted by norajane
Considering how many male artists and painters there have always been, I don't believe that men as a whole see fewer colors. And if you ever meet with a male interior designer, that question wouldn't come up, either. Scuba divers, too, will tell you all about the colorful fish in the reefs.
I think most men don't care so much as to categorize them in more subtle groups and shades.
I don't think the examples would really answer the question, though. I can recognize that even in defining normal, we're defining an average and people fit within some type of distribution around that average. But is the average and distribution with men different from that with women?
I'm not colorblind by any definition. I love the colorful fish, and the many colors of nature. I say my favorite color is blue, but that's really in choosing colors to wear. I have from my travels and my "Top 10 rooms with a view" photos, and my "Sunrise, Sunset" pictures a number of fantastic colors, and I can see them and appreciate the colorful beauty and differences as the sun sets over the ocean for example. But when looking at pictures, hair colors, or some other things, my wife will make distinctions that I don't see, or I do, I barely see a difference where she makes a big difference as she speaks. It makes me really wonder if there is an objective difference in how we perceive them - something a little more concrete than just how we categorize the colors.
But I won't argue that there are capable men designers. I see them even in design of web page ... really, I'll take someone else's word that they are good. The page looks good to me, but I can't do the visually artistic work like they are doing. I focus much more on the technical details functioning behind the designs.
Location: On a clear day, I can see Mt. Rainier ... but you can't count on the days to be clear here ...
Posts: 1,862
Re: Do men really see all the colors that women see?
Quote:
Originally Posted by In_The_Wind
no I am colorblind so is my brother etc
What type of colorblindness? (if you don't mind me asking.) I understand that red/green is the most common, and in the example above, that's what I ran into. I understand that blue/yellow is another fairly common type.
In one conversation, one of the engineers I know told several of us that he was "completely, stone cold colorblind." One of us asked him "So that means that you see everything as some shade of gray?" (That's what we would always assume, right?) He answered, "I actually see everything as some shade of brown."
I'm sure we looked rather humorous because we all just nodded and said, "Oh, okay." Then, almost in unison, we all looked up with a question like, "No, wait. How do you know that?"
Re: Do men really see all the colors that women see?
No kidding! When I decided to repaint my living room, I had color swatches for DAYS. When I asked my husband if he would like a light taupe color, he looked at me funny and said "what the hell is a taupe?"
Re: Do men really see all the colors that women see?
Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyFrogFlyAway
It's why you NEVER take a woman into a paint store and say, "What color do you want to get, honey?"
Liberace had less trouble selecting an outfit for his Mardi Gras performances.
No, it's why you never let the guy pick out a color *without* taking a woman. XD You might mention you think a rich amber would look good and he will come back with neon yellow!
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Do men really see all the colors that women see? 
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