Comments for Walt at Random

Comment on Visual acuity redux by laura

laura — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:58:01 +0000

Yeah, monitors clearly make the difference. On some monitors I see all 9 colors here; on others, none.

Comment on A visual acuity test (or something like it) by laura

laura — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:18:14 +0000

Apparently I have a great monitor in my office, because on a different monitor, I see nothing. Shucks.

Comment on Visual acuity redux by Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:55:21 +0000

Bill: Good point. It’s about discrimination or differentiation (I’m finding that “discrimination” is a hopeless word these days). And, of course, it’s not a test–just an amusement.

Comment on Visual acuity redux by Bill

Bill — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:34:34 +0000

Update: my wife, who has perfect colour vision and some training as an artist, can see nothing but white either. She says our monitor is not coming with us when we move apartments next month.

Comment on Visual acuity redux by Bill

Bill — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:31:53 +0000

The test has little to do with visual acuity — it’s more of a test of colour discrimination. Being well on the way to colourblind myself, I can see nothing but undifferentiated “pale”. (To people like me, “dark” and “pale” are colours as much as colour categories.)

Comment on A visual acuity test (or something like it) by Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:28:24 +0000

Or it may mean that the Dell display needs adjustment. On the second image (see other post), I find that my old, aging, ancient Sony display allows me to distinguish most or all of the colors in the second image if I’m in Movie mode, but few if any in PC mode (which is brighter).

Comment on Visual acuity redux by Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:25:49 +0000

There were at most four in the last one. The differences in this figure are larger than in the other one–always at least two-digit changes, where the other one began with single-digit changes (where “digit” is a change of 1/256th of a primary color’s saturation).

I also find it depends on the settings of a display–e.g., on my ancient Sony 19″ LCD display (at least 5 years old, and I think more like 7), I can barely distinguish three colors in “PC mode” but can sort of make out all ten in “movie” mode.

I also find it weirdly neat. The August essay may be fun.

Comment on Visual acuity redux by Kate W

Kate W — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:18:31 +0000

I could only see three in the last one but all 10 here. Power of persuasion? Or the order of them? I can see them better when I make the box smaller on my phone, and better still wearing my glasses than with contact lenses.

I find this weirdly neat.

Comment on A visual acuity test (or something like it) by Mary Baum

Mary Baum — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:14:53 +0000

I saw four when I moved the browser window from my Dell display to the iMac screen. I guess when I buy a new external to go with my next machine – a laptop – it needs to be an Apple brand!

(On the Dell, I saw nuthin.)

Comment on A visual acuity test (or something like it) by Walt Crawford

Walt Crawford — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:16:54 +0000

Meg: you’re cheating, but…

Laura appears to have a great monitor, exceptional color acuity, or both. Technically, the answer is seven–but the seventh is the pure-white background. There are six boxes, each a different very slightly off-white color, with relatively narrow vertical bands between them. Oh, wait: Now that I go back to the original image, I may have screwed up–there may only be four colors (plus the background). I’ll do another post…