Do we see all colors equally from one person to another?

John Supp 2272

Color can be absolutely defined by the wavelength, or wavelengths of light being reflected by an object of that color. Generally speaking, the human visual spectrtum ranges from 380-750 nanometers, although everybody is different. I can see ever so slightly into the ultraviolet and infrared bands. By slightly, I mean about 30 nm. Completly useless, but fun to mention. Regarding what you name it, you can call it whatever the heck you what, but red is still defined as 620-750 nm. Colors other than primaries are combinations of those primaries. Now whether everyone sees the same wavelength the same way is debatable. So called colorblind people have trouble distinguishing certain colors. So no, not everone sees colors the same way, but the colors are what they are, regardless of our perception of them.

Unknown Brain 2301

Actually,I think the answer is a qualified 'yes".

Now, I imagine as with just about every other feature in a biological organism there's a degree of variation. That might account for some of why people prefer certain colors over others. But speaking as an art major, I can tell you that the vast majority view colors more or less the same.

The reason I say that is the good old "color wheel". See, certain colors go well with certain other colors. Others clash horribly with the same. And those examples are pretty well universal. If you look on a color wheel: http://www.makart.com/resources/artclass/cwheel.html you'll find that the same colors are 'complimentary' regardless of who the viewer is.

If, for example, I saw purple when you saw yellow, those color combinations would be wildly different for me than they are for you.

Also, people who describe colors using metaphor tend to come up with the same terms over and over again. Blue is cool, red is hot and vibrant, yellow is cheery, green is calming etc...

I think, for the most part, we're all seeing the same thing.

Kevin Copenhaver 2371

I have ALWAYS wondered this. The way I always ask is "since the only way to describe a color is to point at said color and say 'that is red' or 'that is blue' how do we know that blue for you is blue for me? The color I see as blue may be the color you would see as yellow, but since we all interpret the colors differently, we would never know the difference."

Now, for my personal opinion: I believe we do all interpret colors differently. I believe black and white are universal, since they are not colors but rather absence of color and abundance of all colors, and shades are the same darkness and lightness, because that has to do with how much white or black would be added to make said color darker, but as for individual colors, yes, they are different. I say this because it would explain a lot of things. Lime green, for instance. Many people love the color, many people hate the color. However, if we all interpreted the color differently, that would explain why. Now, as for colors that go well together, they would have to coincide equally within each individual to work together, right? Wrong! Maybe the colors are interpreted differently in a pattern around the color wheel, making each color still coincide with its respected colors, but it does so in a different way. This is as clear as I can make my answer, it is kind of a hard question to respond to, so I will just say this:

I sure hope so. To think that everything in the world is interpreted differently from person to person is an amazing concept.

Desmon Dunn 1950

no, because we all have a different number of rods and cones and arrangement of them inside our eyes. this makes us all differ in the number of colors that we can detect and how well we can detect variations between colors.

Stas Urban 2168

We do not all see the same color in fact some people cant see color at all.At my work in order to become and operator you need to have a certain score on a color sequence test and basically not one person in my plant had the same score and there are currantly 130 people that work there.So just because you think a color may be red the person standing next to you may think its orange.It has to do with the ammount of pigment a person can interprit through light

Bryan Heslop 1385

We don't all see colors the same. Some people are what we call color blind. They can still see colors they just see them differently. For example my friend sees green as a purple color.
It has to do with the eyes ability to receive different wavelengths of light.