Since we’ve been talking about colors and neurological conditions pertaining to color all week long, I thought this blog might be the appropriate place to talk about this weird problem with color confusion I’ve had for a while now. I confuse the colors orange and green.
Now let me explain the details of what I mean by confuse. I am not color blind, because I can see both of the colors (the color on top is ORANGE, and on bottom is GREEN). But somehow, when it comes to naming the two colors, I get them confused. Of course when I sit here and consciously try to get the names right as I did just now in naming the orange and green colors above, I am usually right. However, it has happened SO MANY TIMES, that when I am naming one of the two colors without thinking about what I am doing, I will mistakenly call something orange green, and vice-versa.
Let me just explain the public embarrassment my problem has caused me over the past years. In the sixth grade, I asked the boy behind me if I could “borrow his green highlighter really quick” and he responded with a very confused look, sarcastically saying “you mean, my ORANGE highlighter…hahaa suuuure”. Ever since then, I promised never to ask for a specifically colored “green” or “orange” highlighter, involving the risk of misnaming the color, but simply just a highlighter.
I remember one time in high school my sister asked what I was going to wear to an event and I proceeded to describe my orange dress in very specific detail for the next ten minutes. You can imagine my sister’s confusion when she later saw the pictures for the event and saw that my dress was actually green and not orange.
There are so many other occasions in which I have subconsciously confused naming the colors orange and green that I began to simply avoid the colors altogether. I won’t say things like “lets get dressed in green for st.patricks day!” or “ew I don’t like this orange jello” but instead I will simply say “lets get dressed up for st. patricks day!” and “ew I don’t like this jello” just so I don’t risk confusing naming the colors. Another solution I have come to using is simply taking a really long time to make sure that I match the color of a pumpkin to the name orange, over and over again, before I comment of its color, to make sure I don’t risk the word green slipping out of my mouth. Yet I cannot help but cringe when I see the colors paired together, and the picture you see above is like a nightmare to my eyes.
I swear I am not making up this up, nor am I exaggerating the extent of this condition. Do understand that I know my colors, and I can see that a three-leaf clover is green and a “men at work” sign is orange. Yet somehow, if I don’t take the time to slowly name those colors, I get their names confused. I don’t know if this is a real neurological condition or just a form of childhood trauma or something else. BUT with the WOONNDERRRSS of the Internet, I have found that I AM NOT ALONE!
Yes, upon writing this blog, today, I decided to look up orange-green confusion online and see if there was anyone out there who confused NAMING the colors. To my disbelief, I actually found someone who posted about having this EXACT problem:
| 04-06-2007, 01:25 AM | |
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Orc in the Playgroung
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Orange/Green confusionLast edited by Bob_the_mighty : 04-09-2007 at 06:21 PM.
| View Poll Results: do you confuse the colors orangeand green? | |||
| yes |    |
4 | 3.54% |
| no |    |
109 | 96.46% |
| Voters: 113 | |||
Hi Neelam,
I have a mild form of this confusion too. It’s exactly as you describe: I can distinguish the two colors perfectly, but every once in a while when I mean to say one of them the other one comes out instead. It’s like a slip of the tongue, but it only happens with those two colors.
One time I heard a psychologist mention it, and he said it is also associated with another condition: an itch” to balance tactile input on both sides of the body. I was flabbergasted, because I have this as well. Especially when I was a kid, if I was walking along and I stepped on a crack in the sidewalk in such a way that I felt it at a certain point of the arch of my left foot, then I would have to step on the next crack in such a way as to feel the same sensation at the same point on my right foot. If I succeeded, it pretty much took care of things, but if the second crack wasn’t the same height, or if I mis-estimated my foot placement, or if something else was different, then I would have to look for yet another crack for whichever foot had received less sensation, in order to bring them into balance.
I call it an “itch,” because it was just a kind of vague sensation that called attention to itself and asked to be “scratched”. Not every tactile sensation gave rise to it. In fact, I guess that the overwhelming majority of tactile sensations throughout the day did not. But sometimes, as when I was walking, or if I touched something just so with my hand or wrist or brushed against something with my arm, I would feel an itch to duplicate the sensation on the other side.
I don’t know, maybe everybody is like that.
Both these conditions have diminished with age—I can’t remember the last time I mixed up orange and green. For some reason I thought about the condition and tried to google it, and your blog came up. So you can add me to your list.
Weirdly yours,
Kevin
Hello!
I know you posted this a super long time ago, and I’m not sure if you even maintain your blog any more. But let me just express how UNBELIEVABLY excited I was to read this. I took a million color blind tests because I thought I was INSANE. I have confused these colors my entire life! I mean, like you say, I obviously know green is green and orange is orange, I’m a painting major, I take color theory classes, I use them time and time again in paintings. But just this past weekend at hershey park my boyfriend pointed out an orange and blue rollercoaster and I couldn’t find it because in my mind I was looking for this bright green one! It’s so strange! Reading your blog was like literally reading word for word what I had JUST described to my boyfriend. I would love to know how many more people are affected by this and why.
Same here, ever since I can remember I say orange instead of green, and green instead of orange. Usually for unimportant stuff, but it happens all the time so I avoid naming colours. Glad to see I am not alone! Thank you internet
I have the exact same thing but with orange and yellow. I am also slightly dyslexic and just attributed it to that. I’m now 40 years old and unlike Kevin who posted earlier mine has not diminished with age.
Thanks for the post.
My dad and I have the same thing!! Exactly the same – we know the difference between the colors and can recognize them and identify them, but sometimes we will inexplicably call one the name of the other. Sometimes we notice it, but sometimes we don’t and it has to be pointed out to us. Then we realize our mistake. This also happens to me with red and blue, but not to my dad. I would LOVE to learn the neurological/psychological/whatever explanation for this!
Your blog was my first stop after Googling orange green confusion :~D my son has this and exactly as you say, he KNOWS the difference, he can see they are not the same, but he just misnames them often! kind of not surprised that there are other people out there that do this, but very interested now to pursue this further to see what else it might link to or mean for his learning (he’s 6). Kevin McGill, your comment about having an itch might be relevant to my son who seems to have tactile issues too. very very interesting….
one thing i have to say, not sure if anybody will be coming back to this page to read it, but apparently in at least one other language, to name green and yellow you use the same word. just like english has limited words for rain, but some aboriginal languages have heaps, we have more words for colours than some other languages.
i recently took this colour survey: http://aram.xkcd.com/color/ which was really interesting because i tend to be quite simple with naming my colours (using a total of about 7-10 different colour names) but after doing it for a while, i started getting stuck with some colours. i think it was more about trying to see it though as opposed to trying to name it. dunno.
interesting…
I decided today that this would be on the web because EVERYTHING is on the web. And it is. I do this all the time. At a past job, someone did it and myself and another person said, “YOU DO THAT, TOO?!” We were the only three people I’ve ever known who do it, but once I knew others did, I knew we were not alone. I don’t have the “itch” thing others describe, just the orange/green thing. Isn’t the brain fascinating?
I’ve been doing this my entire life. “Wow, the grass is really orange today!” or not being able to remember if someone has a green shirt or an orange shirt.
I know green and I know orange, but I confuse them.
I’m not embarrassed by it, like you were describing, but moreso facinated.
There must be a reason for this, and I’m sure it affects those of us who do it in other ways. I just have never met nor talked to anyone who does it.
I’d love to discuss it further. cornnugget@gmail.com if anyone is interested!
Thanks for posting this!
Corinne
I’m back! This is so interesting. I’m wondering now if any of you with this funny phenomenon happen to have any reading difficulties? I recently heard of a condition called Irlen’s syndrome where people have reading difficulties that are easily corrected by using coloured lenses or laying a sheet of coloured film over the text. I’m wondering if this is what my son has as he seems to be very bright but some things just seem to cause him distress and he struggles.
Here’s some info on Irlen’s syndrome.
http://specialed.about.com/od/disabilities/a/Irlen.htm
I have the same thing wrong with me too . It makes me so mad when I call something orange green . I just can’t stand it . And I also hate when i see the two colors paired up . I wish I knew why this happened
OK, apparently there’s not enough scientific evidence for Irlen’s syndrome (reading with coloured lenses or coloured overlays) to bother with it, but I’m wondering if this naming of colours problem is anything to do with split brain? Have you heard of that? Check out the info at Nobel Prize website:
http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/index.html
The guy in the game is confused by what he says as opposed to what he does. Do you think it might be something like this that’s causing the colour naming problem?
hey ive also got this ‘problem’. I’ve noticed that I do not mix up the two when they are associated with something. For example, my university’s colors are orange and blue; i’ve never said green and blue. However, i just called my orange bin a green one, prompting me to search this. So now I’m on a crusade to discover what this is; I’m trying to contact everyone with this condition. Feel free to email me at drpepper7557@gmail.com if you have this condition, know anything about it, or just wanna talk about it.
oh my goodness i cant believe im not the only one! ive mixed up green and orange for as long as i can remember… i really wish there was more information on it, it kind of drives me crazy
There’s a discussion about it here too:
http://www2b.abc.net.au/forumcentral/main.asp?forum=20&frmstatus=3
This response is very late so I’m not sure if anyone will see this or reply but I have experienced the same exact thing my whole life. It’s something I never tell anyone because it’s too hard I explain and I think people will look at me like I’m crazy. Obviously I can distinguish between orange and green but in my head when I see something of one of the colors, often the other color comes to my head first. Sometimes I ever say the wrong color, orange or green. I’m sl glad to see I’m not the only one, if anyone had found out more information on this please let me know!
Hi Devon!
Isn’t the internet a wonderful thing! I’m so happy to hear this is a common occurrence as I was beginning to wonder if my son really was colour blind, even though any test I did with him showed negative. What I’d love to know now, that we know there’s a few people out there who have this condition, are there any other learning nuances that people have experienced.
I’ve been trying to research this… because it seems that a problem like this would be an error with brain functioning, so I’d assume there were other things happening that would be related. However, I’m having a hard time talking with other people with the same issue. If anyone would like to email me at cornnugget@gmail.com, we can brainstorm and see if we can come up with any other similarities.
I’ve spoken with both a neurologist and someone who specializes in the vision process (can’t remember the title
), and neither of them have heard of this.
The only thing I can come up with is this:
In the book “Thinking Fast and Slow”, the author talks about how we have to “thinking systems”. One is the automatic: You know the answer to 2+2 without having to think. You can figure out the answer to 15323×1235232, but most likely, it wouldn’t be something you could automatically answer.
Take that idea, coupled with the Stroop Effect (where words are written in colors… the WORD “r e d” will be typed with blue ink, an you have to say the word aloud. The first reaction is to say “blue”, even though the word is actually red. (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready.html)
That test confuses your two systems. The first thought system is used to automatically knowing colors, but suddenly it’s a little more complicated, so your second system is needed to sort things out.
So, getting back to this orange green thing… My mind automatically says ORANGE! when I see something green. In MOST cases I can correct my error before I actually say the wrong word, but not always.
To me, this feels like the Stroop effect. My brain wants to automatically call orange GREEN (first system), but I know to take a second and double check with my second thought system.
**
The other day I bought shoes for my son. Later in the day I was telling my mom about the shoes. I told her they were bright green, black and silver.
In my memory, there was no question: Green.
When I got home I looked at my sons shoes and they were orange.
Even though I’ve done this my whole life, I’m still surprised when it happens.
(I do this mainly with bright green and orange… never hunter green or anything)
Again, please email me if you’re interested in throwing ideas around!
Corinne
cornnugget@gmail.com