You know those people who love to go around talking about their quirks, whether they're real or imagined? Like, the kind of person who loves talking about her gluten intolerance or how she's synesthetic? I'm that kind of person: I maintain that I'm allergic to whole apples (not cut apples, mind you — I only get a bump on my lip when I eat whole apples), sneeze in direct sunlight, and have poor circulation. None of those has been diagnosed by doctors, but who knows me better than me? Anyway, when I found out there was a test that tells you how color sensitive you are, I understandably got excited. More quirks for me to waffle on about? Sign me up!
First things first: What exactly is color sensitivity, anyway? "Color sensitive" folk are more perceptive than their color insensitive corollaries in terms of color tint and shade. They're the kind of people who freak out over which shade of cerulean will look better on the walls. If you're the kind of person who's like, "Those are the same shades of blue, have you lost your damn mind?" then you might be sensible, but you're certainly not color sensitive.
According to Live Science, we can see colors because we have cells in our retinas called "cone cells" that react to incoming light. There are three kinds of cone cells: Ones that perceive red, ones that perceive green, and ones that perceive blue. All the other colors you see are a result of your brain improvising and combining the lights detected by the three main cone cells. Actually, two to three percent of women have a fourth kind of cone cell (this condition is called "tetrachromacy"), which is probably where the rumor that women are more color sensitive than men comes from. Well, that and the fact that eight percent of men, while only .4 percent of women are afflicted with color blindness. Color blindness is the result of a cone cell deficiency in either number or function.
Now, this test, which comes to us from the site iGame, doesn't tell you anything about color blindness. Rather, it tests your ability to differentiate between colors. Here's how it went for me (spoiler alert: I'm a special snowflake and highly color sensitive