Is my blue the same as your blue?

[charlie_cochrane]

I'm delighted to be taking part in RJ Scott's blog hop - there are some cracking posts there. And here's mine...

My best friend at school once said to me, “I’ve always wondered whether the colours I see are the same as the colours other people see. Is my blue different to yours?”

At the time I just said, “Of course it’s the same, as eyes are all the same, anatomically,” but now I think I was too quick to dismiss the notion.

Clearly people who have colour blindness see things very differently to those who haven’t, and I know from experience that one of my eyes sees things with a yellow tinge while the other’s sight is blue tinged, so maybe there are other subtle differences between what I’m seeing and what somebody else is. People taste things differently, too. I’ve never been able to stand fresh coriander – tastes like washing up liquid – but have only recently discovered that’s got a genetic basis. I thought everyone got the same taste and were total loonies for liking it!

Other senses have individual quirks. My middle daughter can’t stand the touch of velvet and when I was young I loathed the feel of certain plastics, especially those dolls were made from. Certain noises set people’s teeth on edge and my dad couldn’t be in the same room as someone peeling an orange without feeling nauseated at the smell.

How can we ever know what it’s like to experience somebody else’s senses? To use a daft but telling example, I really can’t understand why anybody gets any pleasure listening to John Lennon’s “Imagine” (cue the sick bucket for me!) and I guess fans of the song wouldn’t understand why it makes me feel quite ill, the vile dirge that it is. So how can I begin to appreciate how people I know on the autism spectrum are affected by the way their senses interpret the world around them? Is their blue different to mine? Do the sounds I can tolerate make them feel stressed?

I guess I begin by listening to what they – or their families – tell me, and try to act accordingly, in the same way as, when my dad was alive, I’d take my orange into the garden to peel it. Organisations can help by compensating for their particular needs, as happens in the local cinema when it has autism friendly showings of films: that’s no different in ethos to ensuring flat access to buildings for wheelchair users.

Every one of us can make a difference and generally it won’t cost us more than a bit of thought. Making allowances for other people isn’t political correctness or mollycoddling. It’s common decency.



 

 

Comments

[jen f (from livejournal.com)]

Thanks for the post and participating on this great blog tour! I remember a while back looking online at this special dress where each person in my family saw different colors in the pattern. It was wild.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow.

I love those patterns where there's a jumble of shapes then you start to spot objects!

[marasmine.livejournal.com]

I've wondered about colour perception for an awful lot of years - and got many weird looks with sudden subject changes when I've mentioned it! Scientifically you can test a group of people with a certain wavelength of light and ask them what colour they see - non-colourblind people will agree on the name of the colour. But there is no way of knowing if they are all seeing the same thing. Maybe what one sees as blue is what another sees as red, but they will agree on the name of the colour they are looking at because we learn to name colours at a young age. The sky is blue. The grass is green. The apple is red. (And did you get a quick memory of a first reader there?)

Scents and flavours have been on my mind this week. I've had two weeks at work without the evil filter coffee-maker being switched on while it's owner has been away. She's back this week. I dislike coffee, I particularly dislike the smell of roasting coffee beans and 'proper' coffee that most people find wonderful. I stopped shopping in Southend-on-Sea as a teenager because there was a coffee shop that roasted and sold it's own beans and insisted on pumping the nauseating stench into the shopping precinct.

I won't get into the heave-inducing stink of curry spices.

On a lighter note, we were discussing eating fish at work yesterday. Someone wanted to know what monkfish tasted like. I mentioned that I only liked fish if it 'wasn't too fishy' and the lady I sit next to got very excited because that is the exact phrase she and her sister use and she had never heard anyone else express the same opinion.

I have occasionally been tempted to eat or drink something after reading a written description of it - unfortunately my taste buds can't read and rarely agree that whatever is good.

The differences between people's perceptions is a continual source of confusion and occasional amusement to me.

It has often been suggested that I might have a little too much time on my hands.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

Maybe what one sees as blue is what another sees as red, but they will agree on the name of the colour they are looking at because we learn to name colours at a young age. The sky is blue. The grass is green. The apple is red. Yes! Absolutely.

And do you know what? My Cathy uses exactly that "I like fish if it's not too fishy" line. She also only likes cake "if it's not too cakey".

You don't have too much time on your hands. You have too many intelligent questions on your brain. I've heard it said that the really clever peeps aren't the ones with all the answers, but the ones with all the questions.

[marasmine.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Not sure about "too cakey" but if she is talking about fruit cake then I'm with her. No such thing as "too cream cakey" in my world though.

If the questions led to writing it wouldn't be so bad, but did I really need to spend an hour or two wondering about "what would happen if we woke up in the morning and electricity didn't work anymore?" Especially when I should have been going to sleep.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

She doesn't like the texture of cake, so brownies are sometimes OK but sometimes too cakey.

:)

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

What an excellent post! I too have always wondered if we see the same thing when we look at colours, especially in nature. And I also agree with marasmine too (I avoid places which smell of coffee, especially roasting beans -- when I commuted into Waterloo I used to suffer every morning from some place near Vauxhall which polluted the atmosphere for trains waiting to get into the station).

But the real reason this is such a good post is the reflection that this means we cannot know how someone with autism perceives the world, and feels, and we must listen to them and their carers.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

Thanks, my dear. Yes, that was what I was trying to get across, so I'm glad it worked. And the coffee is a great example, because that's something I love the smell of. When I can smell of course. Sinuses...

[marasmine.livejournal.com]

My deepest sympathy for the unpleasant commute - as if commuting wasn't bad enough without coffee pollution.

Do you think that maple syrup smells a bit like coffee? Or pecan nuts taste of it faintly?

One of my (many) pet hates is restaurants who desecrate a perfectly good chocolate pudding by adding coffee to "improve" the flavour.

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

I don't tend to come across maple syrup or pecan nuts, and they've never appealed to me, so I cannot say. But I agree about chocolate puddings being ruined by the addition of coffee! Desecration.

Thank goodness I no longer have to go to meetings, but I was notorious at work for asking that the table be cleared and the cups taken from the room once everyone had finished their coffees; the stink from the almost empty cups was so awful and distracting that I couldn't concentrate.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

Maple syrup isn't coffee-ish for me.

I get cross about chocolate/cream with everything, but that's just food preference.

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

Coriander... Nomnomnom.

We're only just beginning to understand the ways in which eyes can be different. Tetrachromacy, for example, which intrigues me greatly.

You don't have a cataract in that yellow tinge eye, do you?

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

In re cataract, not unless I've had one for years and it's having no effect on my other vision.

You can have all my fresh coriander. I will hoard it for you. :)

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

I realise there's a genetic variant for coriander but sometimes I wonder if I just happen to like the taste of soap. :D And then there's the asparagus gene (my personal favourite) but I'm sure you know about that one.

A cataract takes years to develop, often without one's noticing it, and a change in colour vision is common. I assume you're having regular comprehensive eye exams but just thought I'd ask. :)

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

Genes have a lot to answer for!

Yep, I get regular eye checks and they are tippet top. One optician used to say I have the sight of a fighter pilot. Long distance, of course. Close up is a blur. :)

[http://openid.aol.com/vitajex (from livejournal.com)]

I never liked the feel of velvet, either. I'm also convinced my late dad had no pain receptors...

Trix, vitajex(at)aol(Dot)com

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

I saw the new Star Wars at an autism friendly screening, which was a great improvement on normal big-screen/big-cinema-chain showings. Of course now I've discovered that it's as easy to go to one or other of the traditional cinemas near me, I don't need to go to the multiplex at all.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

*nods* For similar reasons we tend to go to Harbour Lights as it isn't so big and in your face. You can take drinks in, too and the seats are comfy. :)