Thursday, 12 February 2009

A surprise for my eyes

I went to the optometrist today to get my eyes dilated. Not really a pleasant experience, but apparently since I am very short-sighted I am at risk of having my eyeballs suddenly explode, so I need to get them dilated and checked every few years. A small price to pay.

While the optometrist was waiting for the eye drops to work, I had a browse through the colour blindness test book. For the first time in years (I vaguely remember this happening once when I was at uni) I could read both the normal vision and the colour blind portions of the test. So, for each plate I could see two numbers, the one I should see if I'm not colour blind, but also I could work out what number I should see if I was colour blind. Kind of like looking at this optical illusion and seeing both the old woman and the young woman at the same time.

So, for example, in this image:I can see both the normal vision number (57) and the colour blind number (35).

In this image:I can see both the normal vision number (29) and the colour blind number (70).

Interesting.

[Optical illusion from sharp brains. Dotty number images from Color Vision Testing.]

3 comments:

  1. argsmommy18 February 2009 at 12:40

    I can only see the normal vision numbers, but I could easily see both women in the other picture. My husband is color blind, so I'll have to try it out on him. I love stuff like this. : )

    Kellie

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  2. argsmommy18 February 2009 at 12:45

    Oh, and I forgot to ask was it because of the drops, or are you still able to see both ways? I wonder what effect that has on your normal everyday vision.

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  3. Anonymous25 February 2009 at 13:14

    Um...I can see both as well. Should that concern me?

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