Conference quark::human_relations-v1

Anyone out there have any current statistics on "color blindness"?  I vaguely
remember that MALES are more often color blind than women!

XOXO

    echoing Patty, Jim I think you may be slightly color blind.
    An awful lot of people can see the primary colors, red green
    and blue but have trouble with the off shades. Color blindness
    is more than being able to tell a bright red from a bright
    green - the test you get to be able to drive.
    
    Men are indeed color blind about twice as often as women (any one
    who wants the genetics here, just ask and I will explain) but women
    are also color blind.
    
    My 10 year old daughter has mild red/green color blindness which
    amounts to her seeing a lot of colors that I would call slightly
    green or slightly purple as brown. This sounds like what Jim is
    talking about. (She sees most colors without any problem)
    
    Bonnie

    I've read various reports on this phenomenon, and it is usually
    attributed to training rather than something biological.
    
    				Stevw

    Re .0, Jim, haven't you noticed yet that women seem to be "generally
    trained" to be more sensitive about everything?
    
    Lorna
    
    P.S.  I have.
    

    Re .6, I don't know, but it worked.  Pink is my favorite color.
    

    You obviously didn't get trained in your primary colors as a young
    lad.  Can you recognise magenta, mauve, and pumpkin?  Do you know
    the differences between tan, straw, fawn, off-white, mocha, beige,
    and khaki, and can you put them in order from lightest to darkest?
    When you look at Digital manual sets, is your first reaction
    "orange" or "chinese red"?
    
    ;-)s aside, I think a lot of this is training.  Most guys don't deal
    with the slight variances in shade that women learn to distinguish
    when dealing with eye-shadows or panty-hose.  Most men's clothing
    specifies colors like "blue", "green", or, if they're living
    dangerously, "khaki" on the tags, while women's clothing comes with
    colors like "strawberry" and "teal".  Sure, more men than women
    are color-blind (the figure I've heard is 10% of the male population
    or something like that), but I'll bet that the ones that aren't
    are still not trained to be as attentive to color detail unless
    they are into some job or hobby that requires it.  You just need
    to paint more lead figures, Jim....

    re: color blindness.
    
        According to what I learned in school men are more likely to
    be color blind because it is believed that the genes which cause
    color blindness are located in the branch of the X chromosome that
    corresponds to the missing branch of the Y chromosome.  In order
    for a woman (two X chromosomes) to be colorblind both X chrmosomes
    must contain the gene for color blindness.  A man has an X and a
    Y chromosome, so the gene for color blindness need only be in the
    X chromosome for him to be color blind.  The same theory applies
    to baldness, and some other genetic conditions which occur mainly
    in men.
    
    re: Colors
    
        I favor the argument that men haven't been trained to be as
    sensitive to variations in colors.
    
        Jim stated that people see the same colors differently a while
    back.  I don't think that this matters, because even if their minds
    have different perceptions of the color they have been given the
    same label for the color.  For example if person A sees a color
    called "red", and person B seeing the same color percieves the color
    to be what person A would call "orange" it doesn't matter.  Person
    B would have been told that that color is called "red".  And when
    persons A and B see the color they would agree that is is red.
    
    ASP

    In .8, didn't you leave out "ecru"?  (A color I did not encounter
    until I was in my late twenties.)
    							Ann B.

    re .9 Your genetics is correct execpt that baldness is not
    carried on the X chromosome (tho it used to be listed that
    way in the genetics books when I first started teaching).
   

RE: .5

That depends on your use of the word sensitive...

RE: .7

*Pink*, there's another good question...  Have you *ever* seen a male mostly
wearing *pink*?  How about purple?  No disrespect, but *I* won't wear it...

Jim. 

    re -.1 - Yup, lots of guys I know have those generic business
    shirts (ss and ls versions) in pink.  I don't think they come
    in lavendar (y'know what lavendar is, doncha Jim?  Just a tad
    lighter than mauve and less red in it than violet....)
    
    But come now, this topic is *definitely* not earthshaking enough
    to warrant discussion in the HR conference.  We should be discussing
    something more serious, like the moral and ethical obligations
    we have to provide for those poor unfortunates who can't get jobs
    as electricians because they're colorblind..........
    
    --Louise

    it depends on which box of Crayola's did you have as a child? did
    you get the box of 9? 12? 36? 
    
    smiles....

    re .12:
    
    >*Pink*, there's another good question...  Have you *ever* seen a male
    >mostly wearing *pink*?  How about purple?  No disrespect, but *I* won't
    >wear it... 
     
    Yes.  I used to have a CS instructor in college who probably wore
    *all* pink 3-4 days a week.  This included pink trousers.  You know,
    these software types... :^).  I guess he just liked pink.
    
    I seem to be a bit skewed in how exactly I see colors as well. 
    Several people I know will call something I see as purple, blue;
    or see what I see as dark red/maroon, purple.  Often I will see
    something as blue when others see it as grey.
    
    re .-2 (I think)
    Yea, that's the problem.  Jim was an underpriveliged child because
    he had too small a box of crayons.  Maybe we should all go in together
    and buy him a box of 64 crayons.  :^)
    
    Elizabeth
    

    I have a tee-shirt which (to my eyes) is orange. Yet a friend insists
    that it is in fact apricot.
    
    Pete.

    
    
    I always let my wife take care of the color coordination in my
    wardrobe....That way I think I'm playing it safe, since everybody
    i know disagrees with the names I give to the colors I see....
    
    When I was young I always thought that the green in the traffic
    lights was WHITE, until someone pointed it out to me. Now I see
    it green, it's wierd....
    
    But it's ggod to know that I'm not the only male that can only see
    basic good old colors everywhere.....(like white, grey and black!!!)
    Talk about monochromatic vision!!!!
    
    ART. 

Research findings (sources long since forgotten)

  The average human eye can distinguish ... ummm ... a couple hundred 
thousand shades of color.  The gender of the eye's residence does not 
matter, only that the eye be open.

  Most women dream in color.  A great many men dream in black and white (OK 
gray scale for the fussbudgets).  I forget the gender breakdown but it 
was quite pronounced.  

  Most girls develop verbal skills earlier than most boys, say, age 2
through 12 (I forget what happens after that).  Here's a wild guess:  if a 
kid passes through the Learn-New-Words stage and the Notice-All-the-Colors
stage at the same time, she might naturally absorb more color names.

  Curious incident.  A friend of mine can recall loads of "images" of her 
life, starting about age 2.  Her early images are in black and white.  
Her later images are all in color -- starting at the time she learned to 
read.  (She realized this the day five or six of us were at coffee, 
discussing the fact that our crayolas had gender: for *most* of the six,
yellow, green, pink, and white were female; black, brown, and navy blue
were male. (A few radicals made wholly different appointments while 
empiricists like myself never had this thought.)              Meigs

    well of course black brown and navy blue crayons are male..
    
    who said they weren't (;-) ) 
    
    thank you Meigs for one of life's little 'clicks'