Does my seeing the world in black and white, actually affect how I perceive the world?

There might be, afterall males rely heavily on sight for the most part, so having a harder time sorting “at a glance” physically may have influenced your mental patterns towards a more case-by-case approach.

^ You know, I rarely recall what someone looks like. I meet someone new, important even – like a date, or a new teacher or potential friend, or a student (I teach and study) – and I don’t remember them 5 minutes later. Names I’m good with.

I never remember what someone wore – even myself.

I don’t remember any pictures or paintings in people’s houses – even my own over the years (not the current home of course, I’m not an idiot.)

I just remember words. I remember music. I remember smells vividly.

@zenele Are you daredevil?

No. I’m Spider-man.

@zenele I don’t know if your colour-blindness affects your perception of people, but I think it is probably a blessing for you as having ANY prejudice based on someone’s physical appearance (and not JUST skin colour) is beneficial to you. I don’t anticipate your situation would have been much of a disability in your life as you say you teach and study. An uncle of mine is colour-blind and an engineer with his own company. So, I salute you and your successes despite your misgivings, if in fact you have any misgivings.

@zenele With your achromatic and low acuity vision, there are few visual cues about people that stand out for you.

As long as people you meet are informed of this, when they approach you they should speak to you by name and identify themselves by name to help you connect your recall of your past interactions with them to their presence. It is a courtesy we (should) accord our blind friends. Our interactions and experiences with people can be rich and colourful even if our vision denies us this kind of information.

I’m not sure that is the cause. Some people have visual emphasis in their brains, others don’t. I am quite visual even though I am colour blind. I work best when I am learning new concepts, because I simulate them in my mind (the only difference is that everything is blue, black and yellow to make it easier). When I first learned about relativity, I created vortices and warps in space-time in my head, and it helped immensely. I also find I can read facial expressions easily, and can often tell people what they are feeling when they don’t even know it shows.

I think you are just wired to focus more on other attributes, and your physical colour blindness is coincidental.

Lovely answers so far. Thank you. Good point, @Dr_Lawrence – youknow how it is – people (including myself) get defensive about their shortcomings and handicaps – I fear not that word – but instead – I will make a note to mention to a person that I have to repeat their name a few times, I also find that it helps when I write things down immediately. Even just a name.

@Andreas Oh, I have many misgivings. But I remember when I wanted to do some security work – I won’t gointo details – and they wouldn’t even allow colour-blind people to apply. Of course flying was also out of the question in the military.

But as we get older, we learn to accept who we are. Good and bad.

:-)

That would be a good conversation starter—what is your strongest and weakest sense? How do you remember people?

There’s an expression, “the devil is in the details.” It would be plausible that you miss visual cues in people because you are not attuned to extracting visual detail from your surroundings as a primary method of information gathering. It could come across as not paying attention, when in reality it’s not realizing that there’s anything going on to pay attention to, unless you pick up an auditory cue, or a larger body gesture.

I rarely ever remember people’s names or faces (but I never forget a dog). I am working on paying more attention when I am introduced, but my head just never seems to be there, it is always somewhere else. I don’t think I am uncaring or disinterested, just have a busy mind. Maybe you have a busy mind too!

@zenele, How good is your auditory recognition? Are you good at recalling how people sound? Sounds can be just as subtle and varied as colors. Maybe, as @PandoraBoxx suggested, you are just much more sensitive to one medium than the other. As far as seeing things in black and white in the metaphorical sense, that is not the impression I get of you on Fluther. Could you give examples of what you mean by this?

I don’t think there is a way for anyone to know, since color vision is actually a kind of hallucination and is perceived differently by every human. It is not a physical phenomenon which takes place somewhere in the eye. It is an interpretive phenomenon that takes place in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain.

I feel bad for you that you cannot see the vivid colors of a sunset or the subtle myriad shades of green that make up a forest.

I think it is quite possible that your lack of color vision has an impact on your perceptions of people. People’s actions must stand out to you like colors.

Well, my dad is color blind, red/green, and he is sort of a black and white guy, but I don’t think it has anything to do with his ability to see color. My father, even though color blind, loves nature, natural scenic areas, the mountains, forest, ocean, you mention you don’t remember paintings and faces, but do you remember or not appreciate anything visual?

I did a puzzle with my dad last time he was here. I swear I don’t know how he puts together two pieces. The puzzle was very detailed, very difficult, varying shades of pink, blue, green red, really complex, and he was getting some of it done and then at one point said to me, “do you see any pieces that have this pattern of light and dark grey?” It was pink and fuscia. I couldn’t believe it, even though I know he is color blind. I guess he focuses more on the pattern and compensates. Still, when that puzzle was done he loved it (not just because we did it together, but loved the scene), was upset I was going to break it up. He can’t perceive the entire scope of how beautiful the picture is, not like I can, but it was still beautiful to him.

Growing up helping my dad with color was kind of a neat thing actually. Almost like translating for a parent who cannot speak the language of the new country. The building where I went to the doctor when I was little was very confusing, and you would be directed to follow the green line to dermatology, or red line to Pediatrics, etc. We had to do it for him, he couldn’t see the color of most of the lines. Also, every time I wore blue he would tell me how much he liked that shirt or dress. Made sense, it was one of the colors he can see. So I knew if I wore blue he liked it. I buy him a lot of blue also for gifts.

Oh, I just noticed this is in general, I hope my rambling did not bother the OP or the mods, we’ll see.

@zenele – When you look at something scenic and beautiful. Does it affect you emotionally?

DO you still see the beauty (or tragedy) in it. IF yes, then all is good. :-)

@zenele if you have never seen color, aren’t the complexities of what you do see, tones of grey, colorful to you? Can you imagine color having never seen it?

I know when my vision became somewhat damaged I started to recognize people from a distance more by gait than face and voices became more informative.

So many interesting observations – and questions:

@LostInParadise Auditory is excellent – better than most I’d say. I sing and play several instruments – well. My sense of smell (olfactiry) is scary sometimes. I can remember people, or a situation, from their smell – going back 40 plus years.

@marinelife People always “feel bad” for me – I don’t think I’m losing out on anything.

@ChazMaz No. It doesn’t. But when I see my kids sleeping, I can cry. When I hear a person is suffering I am empathetic and sympathetic. When I see a person stretching out his hand in need – I give him all I have on me. When I hear a beautiful piece, I am moved by the music. Classical, Opera or even some contemporary.

@anartist I can imagine colour. I don’t particularly care whether the apple is red or green . I know I prefer the tart Granny Smiths; so green it is. The red traffic light is on top. The green on the bottom. The sea is blue, the trees are green. I don’t care.

I see gait very well – I know what you mean definitely! Faces less so – but a face with a name is ok.

@zenele My dad has a big problems when he gets to a city that has the traffic lights horizontally, because he does not have committed to memory if the red is on the left or right.

^ Left, internationally – for us colour-blind peeps.

@zenele He says he kind of watches the traffic and figures it out each time he encounters it. A little scary LOL.

@zenele My dad was color-blind and that kept him out of officer corps during WWII in spite of a military academy prep school and a college degree. He went in as enlisted.

@JLeslie I do that too. It’s fine – erally. Think about it – if you’re alone on the road – you’re not botheing anyone – like “right on red” in NJ.

If you’re behind traffic – you sense what is happening. You don’t need a “merge” sign to know that the traffic ahead of you is merging, right? You just follow the car ahead of you. If you are alon, again, you just follow the road.

@anartist – I really wanted to be a pilot. Ended up a commando.

I did, however, get to fly a plane as a 30th birthday gift, and I’ve since sent my kids to fly cessnas.

@zenele Yeah, if he is alone he can figure it out by the sequencing, because lights change from green to yellow then red, but go straight from red to green. Unless you are in England which has red/yellow (red/orange) but that is just another pattern.

I definitly think yes! you actually recognised it yourself:
“I see the world in black and white, both metaphorically and in reality”
you don’t “notice the diffrence of tine between people” both metaphorically and in reality…
You already see the correlation, now all that is left is to say: “yes! that’s exactly it!”
According to hoilsctic phylosophy, this is just the way things correlate between body and mind, your body sees the world in exactly the same way your mind does.
On that note, I also have a question: along with seeing life in a very black-and-white way, do you feel that your life might be missing “some color”?

Very interesting topic.

Seems to me your main way of remembering people/things/events isn’t a visual one… did you develop something else extra strongly? Like smell or touch?

And now, maybe it’s because I reference people/thing frome the real world in color…
but whenever I watch a movie in black and white… I can still very clearly make out people from different races… I wouldn’t say that color has everything to do with somebodies racial background, lots of facial features give hints to that.

(Though one time I watched a movie which only showed color in the last 5 minutes plot, it was a real eye-openen, because the lead actress turned out to have blue hair)

I have color vision, but have always had a form of emotional color blindness. Others can look at a person, a scene, a situation and see some kind of nuanced picture. To me, it’s either good or bad. The best that I can do to approximate what others seem to do is to break things down into smaller pieces and judge those, but this does little to affect my overall impression. I can break something down into 100 pieces, 99 being “good”, but if my initial impression was “bad”, that judgement stays. I try to file it away mentally as “99% good, but overall impression bad”; that’s as far as I can go.

This would make a great first date question! Look how easy it was to talk about, and how interesting it is.

The Ansel Adams wa a great American Photographer. That photographed nature and its surroundings in Black and White.

Color is/was not needed to express the beauty and power of his picture.

@ChazMaz That’s because as someone equipped with color vision, you learned how to interpret a grayscale.

Shalom @Marva – ma nishma? Long time no speak. Thanks for your post and subsequent question, you asked: along with seeing life in a very black-and-white way, do you feel that your life might be missing “some color”?

In truth – no, not really. I love flowers, e.g, and bought a long stemmed rose last night for an aunt when I came to dinner (plus another little gift, but that’s another issue). I love the long-stemmed variety very much – and I love tulips and orchids.

I love nature, but more the being outdoors with sounds and smells – especially at night when I can hear and smell for miles – like a bloodhound/eagle. My vision in one eye is still quite good for distance (bad for reading – no 3d for me either – no depth perception) and I love watching animals and birds in the wild. Scents do it for me: I can correctly identify 5 different spices in a mix of five (say, for a chinese dish). I remember perfumes that I have smelled in the past, and can identify people from 40 years ago based on their smell, both personal and bought aromas.

I am an aromatherapist – and ove blending and discovering new applications for ther various essential “oils” (they aren’t really oils – it’s a myth – but that’s for another thread.)

So no, I don’t think I miss colour nor need colour. I feel, I hear music, I smell everything and thank God – I still see clearly enough to appreciate the wonders of this world.

@Habibi, I love to hear you talk.

:-) ^

I think our native language (and the number of languages that we know well) has a greater influence on how we perceive the world compared colors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir_Worf_Hypothesis

Sapir-Worf has long been discredited in the linguistics community.

@dpworkin – By some yes, but not all. Learning the details of this hypothesis does still offer valuable insights.

@zenele Shalom again! How intresting, I am also an aromatherapist….

^ :-)

I believe it does.

I’m color blind, too (HIGH FIVE!). I don’t see in black and white, but have the milder condition where I can’t tell what color some things are (blue/purple, green/brown are confusing). For that reason, I don’t pay much attention to colors in some circumstances, like eye colors. I was talking to my ex some time ago, and I asked “hey, I can’t remember, is the color of your eyes darker than mine?”. Man, she got pissed, “you don’t know the color of my eyes after 4 years together? yadda yadda yadda”. After I explained how things work for us color blinds, she calmed down.

So, in summary, we don’t pay attention to some things (i.e., colors), but pay greater attention to other things. How much does that change things, I can’t tell.