Ever had a debate with a friend about whether something was blue or green?
Well, it turns out, neither of you may have been wrong! A new test called Is My Blue Your Blue? is here to settle the color confusion once and for all, revealing how your perception of shades like blue or green stack up against everyone else’s.
Created by neuroscientist and AI researcher Patrick Mineault, this fun experiment dives into the fascinating world of color perception. The test is meant to show just how differently we all see the world—even when we’re looking at the same thing.
Highlights
- A new test called 'Is My Blue Your Blue?' reveals how differently we see blue and green.
- The test, created by neuroscientist Patrick Mineault, shows users six shades and asks them if they see blue or green.
- "People’s perceptions are ineffable, and it’s interesting to think that we have different views," the creator of the experiment said.
Is My Blue Your Blue? is a fun test designed to reveal just how different (or similar) our color perceptions really are
Image credits: Ismy.blue
Here’s how the test works: you will be shown a series of six shades that fall somewhere in the blue-green zone and asked a simple question for each one: “Is this blue or is this green?”
After you've made your picks, the test reveals where your "blue-green boundary" lies compared to the rest of the population. Spoiler alert—most people tend to hover around the same shade, 175, which interestingly matches the HTML color code for turquoise.
The test pits six shades of blue-green against each other; it then reveals where your perception lands compared to others
Image credits: Ismy.blue
Image credits: Ismy.blue
“Colors are often represented in HSL (hue, saturation, lightness) color space,” said the programmer and the designer of the viral web test. “Hue 120 is green, and hue 240 is blue. The test focuses on blue-green hues between 150 and 210.”
“In early experiments, we found that people's responses cluster around 175, which coincidentally is the same as the named HTML color turquoise,” he continued. “This is interesting, because the nominal boundary between blue and green is at 180, the named HTML color cyan.”
Patrick explained that he created the test following an argument he had been having with his wife.
Patrick Mineault, who created the test, said he came up with the idea following an argument with his wife
“I’m a visual neuroscientist, and my wife, Dr Marissé Masis-Solano, is an ophthalmologist,” he told The Guardian. “We have this argument about a blanket in our house. I think it’s unambiguously green and she thinks it’s unambiguously blue.”
“I added this feature, which shows you the distribution, and that really clicked with people,” the neuroscientist explained. “‘Do we see the same colors?’ is a question philosophers and scientists – everyone really – have asked themselves for thousands of years. People’s perceptions are ineffable, and it’s interesting to think that we have different views.”
Since the launch of the ismy.blue test in August, the website saw more than 1.5 million visits in about a month.
“I’m not super surprised that it struck a chord because people want to understand how others see the world,” Patrick said.