The color test

balderdash@lemmy.zip to Lemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world – 465 points –
59

Fun fact, most people in the world are trichromats, they have 3 types of colour sensors in their eyes. One type of colourblindness that only affects men is where they only have 2 types of sensor and are dichromats - the gene is only found in the X chromosome, and it's impossible for women with two X chromosomes to get the deficiency. However, it's possible for women to get super genes and have 4 types of sensor, making them quadchromats. These ladies can see colours in between two other colours, that no one else can see. However, because the world is built by and for trichromats, this gift goes by largely unknown even by the people who have it.

It is possible for women to be colorblind (if their father is colorblind and their mother is a carrier for the gene).

It is also possible for men to be tetrachromats if they have XXY genes (called Klinefelter syndrome).

This is not true. That women cannot have the congenital dichromacy (or anomalous trichromacy) that biological males commonly have is flat out wrong. A biological female can still be a protan or deutan, but the phenotype requires that both X chromosomes carry the recessive color vision-deficient alleles. Nevertheless, given that ~8% of all X chromosomes have such a gene regardless of sex, the incidence in the female population is still around half a percent, which is not insignificant.

Interestingly, one form of tetrachromacy in females actually has the same cause as color vision deficiency in some males (specifically anomalous trichromacy). From what I understand, only one X chromosome is active per cone cell, and which one is active is random. So, half of such a person's cone cells of one type are "normal" while the rest of that type are anomalous and have a slightly different peak wavelength. The net result is four different types of cone cells, i.e., tetrachromacy, which may have an incidence of more than 10% in females.

X-inactivation is a little bit more complicated than that. While the process of X-inactivation initiation is random, once a cell has settled on one chromosome, all its daughter cells will silence the same chromosome. The initial process happens in the early embryo, so large patches of the body have the same X chromosome silenced.

This pattern is visible in some animals. E.g. a tortoise cat's pattern arises due to the hair color gene existing on the X chromosome. Consequently, male tortoise cats are rare (XXY, XXXY etc only)

Neat, thanks for the clarification. Even though the initial proportion is 50/50 for X-activation, are there scenarios where one daughter line is more prominent than the other, or does it usually remain 50/50?

Statistics would indicate that that is a plausible scenario.

In addition, a uniparental disomy can occur as well. Here, the X chromosome was duplicated in the egg cell. So the exact same X chromosome is inherited twice.This is an error in meiosis. This could occur in XXX (with the third X from the father's side), XXY, or even XX. That latter one would be rare, for a uniparental disomy on X without a third sex chromosome would mean both egg and sperm cell had an error during meiosis.

You could also see a single X (Turner Syndrome) as a 100% dominant X-chromosome. But that may be semantics.

It’s not actually called quadchromatism but tetrachromatism.

I once knew a girl who was colorblind. Both her parents were too. It's rare but it can happen.

How the mom got colorblind?

the gene for red green color blindness is carried on the X chromosome so a woman can have it it is just very rare. Now blue yellow color blindness is much much rarer and carried on a different chromosome so men and women have it equally

I didn't know her well enough to ask. She was a friend of a friend, and this was over a decade and a half ago.

My daughter has the super eyes. She looooves pointing out different colors that "daddy can't see!" Lol.

I don't have this condition, but just guessing: couldn't you eventually figure it out if you noticed that cameras (which just use RGB) couldn't capture certain distinct colors that you could see?

One is slightly brighter/more magenta-esque

But yeah there's basically no difference

Left is #b100fe and right is #b71cfe

Left is darker than the right one

I think I read something before about how women's eyes are better at differentiating colors but men's eyes are better at detecting movement.

Maybe that's why I'm always like "how did you not find this thing, it's sitting right there!" all the time.

I think it's a cultural thing. In uni we had to learn how to titrate to figure out concentrations and we had to look out for sudden color changes to figure out the concentration of a solution. Well, I had a professor who'd constantly revel in the fact that men often had trouble with this, but in a toxic way.

I know that women are constantly exposed to different tones and shades from using makeup. And I understood the assignment because I had studied some graphic design earlier and had to tell colors apart. Whet she didn't get was that I only needed a color reference all along! I literally did not know what color it was supposed to be and she didn't bother to explain lol

You mean you can't almost immediately tell the left is barely darker than the right?

No it's not! move phone closer, then further away... No it's not! Is it?!

After staring for long enough I've decided that left is slightly more purple and right slightly more pink

1 more...

My theroy is that since decorating is seen as a feminine thing (which is silly) a lot of men will play dumb about color differences to not appear girly. It easy enough to say it doesn't matter and not care. But those two shades are super close, but they are different. Every time I've had a guy blow something like this off, I was able to drill them down in to admitting that they do see a difference.

It's not exactly weaponized incompetence but more like learned protective responses effects of toxic masculinity.

Ever heard of chromosomes? Girls see colors more vibrantly BECAUSE they have X X pair which helps in color perception and distinction. But yeah if you want to blame this on "toxic masculinity", go ahead.

While the chromatic genes are on the X chromosome and this does give girls a statistical advantage, really most men and women are more or less the same. Most people are trichromats with 3 types of colour sensors, however there is a certain type of colourblindness only in men where they have a defficient X gene and only end up with 2 types of sensors. With women, they can't get the dichromatic defficiency because of the redundant X gene. Instead, they can sometimes end up with 4 types of sensors and can see even more colours than everyone else - they see shades of colour in between colours that everyone else sees as the same.

So having XX genes doesn't help you see better or distinguish colours, it just changes the likelihood of either a slight defficiency or a slight extra proficiency - but most likely you'll be about the same as everyone else.

Thanks for the information! and sorry about not being knowledgeable enough in my previous comment

Ha! I almost put that info in my post. But, also you got the fact wrong.

No XX people don't see more color vibrantly, but XY are indeed more likely to be color blind. But honestly the rate at which XY chromosome men are more color blind is nowhere near the amount of guys that can't tell the difference between colors. Absolutely more men are red-green colorblind due to heredity, but that doesn't explain why the majority of men claim to not be able to see the difference between all sorts of different color sets that are similar.

I mean come on, stop and think why this even got posted. It's a well known trope that isn't explained by a few % more XY people being colorblind.

Thanks for the clarification! but yeah honestly every girl I know is way better at differentiating color than I am, while I am good at it, from my experience girls have been better at that

Thats a cool and valid anecdote! I, myself, am AMAB and can differentiate between colors super well. Hopefully my anecdote can help balance our your a bit ^-^

No. It’s not guaranteed that females can see more colors. It’s almost impossible for males to do so (XXY chromosome grouping, which is also rare), but it’s also fairly rare for women to be able to see more colors. Females can also be colorblind, but it’s very rare: both X chromosomes you get from your parents must carry the deficient gene.

Yes, there is a difference, but it's barely perceptible, therefore it makes no difference which one is picked. If you actually have a preference go with that one. Otherwise flip a coin.

Well yes, but that is besides the point of what I'm saying? Of course the choice doesn't matter, they are functionally the same, just not exactly the same. No one would come out and say that DEF the right is better and the left sucks.

But they ARE different. I mean this works as a joke here in shit posting because it's a well known thing that a lot of men will say there is NO difference. That's not true.

You’re being hated on, but I get what you mean. There are people that to fit in, according to what they’ve learned or been taught, would pretend to not see the difference. I guess people here don’t think that such things can affect people.

But also, there are lots of colorblind guys. I can't barely tell a difference between brown and green, let alone these colors.

I'm a guy, and at first glance, I literally didn't see a difference. The colors are so close that I just didn't bother taking the time to actually check if they're slightly different.

Yeah, if I take the time and look closely, I'll notice a difference. If I'm decorating a room or something and actively looking at colors, I'll make sure to grab the same code because someone would notice otherwise, but I'm really good at just ignoring small differences.

And I'm very far from your arrival stereotypical "masculine" man. I spend more time than my wife snuggling with our kids, I hate trucks and love hybrid cars, and I am usually very reserved in public instead of taking up lots of space. So I don't think I fit those typical gender roles, I just literally don't care about small differences in color, and I do not notice unless someone points it out.

Do you see the irony of writing out a few paragraphs so you can explain "not all men have toxic traits" to a woman about why her personal take on patriarchy is flawed? Gender roles are made up BS, so I'm happy you don't see yourself in that binary. But look how many other men also came to correct me. You have plenty of company saying very simmiliar things.

Not liking trucks or snuggling your kids doesn't exempt you from possibly picking up culture influences. Look, you don't have to agree or like my personal opinions. No one does. But I've already explained thoughts throughly enouvh yesterday. Go read my other comments if you like, but I'm done talking about this.

You came out with a gender stereotype (men don't like decorating), and the response you got was (probably) men explaining how that doesn't hold. I gave a specific example of why I, as a man, don't notice slight color differences, and it's not some macho "decorating is for girls" reason, I literally don't notice them unless I take the time to look. So it's less about some cultural aversion and more not noticing stuff I don't care about. I'm sure you're the same way in other areas (e.g. my wife doesn't notice differences in similar looking bicycles, but I do because I care about the domain).

You're obviously entitled to your own opinions, but if you post them publicly, expect them to be challenged.

And no I don't see irony here. If I'm going to take the time to write something out online, I'll be throughout so I'm hopefully less likely to be misunderstood. I do it for pretty much everything, I want to see high quality content, so I try to contribute what i think is high quality.

Actual man here:

The original image above, the color is so close that my brain is willing to write off any perceived difference as an optical effect; one page might be held at a slightly different angle to the light and slightly more in shadow or something. The cropped side by side image with most of that context removed, yeah the left one is slightly darker.

Imagine I was painting a room. A big room, enough to need more than one gallon of paint. if I got halfway through a wall, ran out of the first can, opened the second can, and the color was that different where it left a visible seam...yeah that would irk me. On the other hand, if they told me they've only got one can of each of these two colors...I could make that work. I could plan ahead and put the seam in a corner or something where again the angle of light will probably trick you into thinking it's not there.

That's not what women do to me though. What women do to me is scamper up with a handful of swatches/lipstick tubes/nail polish bottles/whatever, and say "Which do you like better? Totally Tiffany, Neon Bruise, or What Barbie's Black Friend Wears?" All three are similar shades of purplish magenta. They're close enough that one being slightly farther back in her hand or at a slightly different angle to my eye can change the difference. She intends to choose one, buy (or sometimes wear) it, and leave the others behind. Once it's on her hands/face/walls, you'll never see the others.

Now, in the case of makeup...It's genuinely not "that's girl stuff, being interested in that threatens my masculinity" or however many pop psychology feminist blame words you want to stack up on it. It's how vehemently negative women react to men expressing opinions on makeup. I, like approximately 4 billion other men, don't really like how women look when they're wearing a lot of makeup, and have been bitched out at length for saying so. As a result, A: I no longer see women as "pretty" or "beautiful" because one way or another they really aren't, and B: I'm going to shut down any question here as abruptly and angrily as possible. Probably with a "How fucking DARE you ask me this?" Starting out trying to be nice and diplomatic "It doesn't matter to me, go with the one you like" is just a waste of time, because she will not accept it.

In the case of house paint, there's a 45% chance that she's in the same "there is a perceptible difference but it's so close that it won't matter in the finished product, but I've got to tell the guy behind the counter to make just one of them" headspace he's in, and the real dispute is that neither of you are willing to make the pointless decision neither of you cares about, and a 55% chance she's already picked out a favorite and she's "testing" you to see if you're going to pick the same one, because this month's issue of Cosmo told her to. Most of the time you can tell which scenario you're in if she's asking about the primary or trim color.

Then when he says "They look the same to me" she interprets this as "I am strongly asserting that these are precisely the same CMYK shade" and not "they're so close that it's not worth the effort you're asking me to put in."

Meanwhile this whole time I've been two aisles down on staring at the cans of Minwax stain utterly convinced that the little sample window they put to show you what color the stain is are all the same shade of brown with different patterns of wood grain in them.