Can Blind People See Colours?

It might be thought by the sighted that people who are blind from birth would have no idea what the sighted mean by different colours.

If you are unable to see, and have never been able to do so, how would you know what the colour red is?

The colour blue? The difference between black and white? How can you actually describe colour to somebody who has never seen it? How would they understand the concept of colour?

Which Colours Feel Hot? Which Feel Cold?

Would you describe red as a warm colour? Blue as a cool colour? Black as an absorbing colour?

What the sighted need to remember is that colours are seen differently because of the way in which light strikes them.

Light deposits energy on an object in differing quantities and this thermal force may be picked up on and felt by a blind person.

How The Sense Of Touch Affects Colour Recognition

There are reports that congenitally blind people can differentiate between the colour red, for example and the colour white.

Is it that blind people have a sensitivity of touch that can pick up the colour difference or is it the way that the light is striking the object?

As white reflects light whereas red absorbs it, it is possible that a very sensitively touched blind person can notice the difference in the ways the rays of refracted light ‘heat’ the object being touched.

How Blind People Choose Clothing That Matches

To help colour co-ordinate clothes and make sure that outfits do not have garish colour clashes, blind people have devised various methods to assist them. Some clothes manufacturers incorporate braille labels identifying colours and prices on the tags.

Other blind people sew their own braille labels into their clothes after purchase. Another method is to colour code different areas of their wardrobes and closets with braille labels so that for example, red clothes are in one area, blue in another, black in another.

There are also handheld scanners available to the blind. Pointed at the object in question, they pick up the colour and verbally report back on the findings – “red”, “pink”, “purple” or whatever.

Whether blind people can sense colour is open to question, but the sighted should remember that there are many things that we cannot ‘see’ with our naked eyes but which we know are there.

For example some gases, radiation, X rays, radio waves.