The Psychological Implications of Being Color Blind

C. R. SNYDER, Ph.D. University of Kansas I have made a lifelong study of color blindness-although nothing technical about color mixture functions, spectral locus, luminosity curves, or anything of the sort. Rather, I have experienced what it is like to lack color vision. What are the psychological implications of being color defective? The two questions I am asked most frequently are "What is it like?" and "What do you see?" I think that I have finally come to understand these questions. "What is it like?" mean5 that the questioner would like to know how I operate with defective color vision. "What do you see?" implies that the questioner would like to look through my eyes and to perceive as I do. There is no way to answer this second question because I do not have the same frame of reference as does the person with normal color vision. Turning the situation around, I ask the person with normal vision to tell me what he sees. He cannot tell me-at least so that I understand him-because his perceptual sensations and the names which he applies to these sensations are different than mine. In turn, there is no way, in words, for me to communicate to him what I see. Thus the second question must go unanswered.