Can a congenitally blind person understand colour?

Question

This follows on from my previous question.

Answer 1

No

Answer 2

I dont believe they can,,,, another question is do they dream and if so do they see images

Answer 3

this is more a philosophical question tbh, if you take a blind person from birth and leave them in a empty dark room no contact with anyone can he have the power of though, can he sense things, percieve things can he imagine and what seing as what we imagine is influenced from everything else we are surrounded by it is hard to say if a congenitally blind person can see colour though i would say yes but probably different to how we see it

Answer 4

Colors are variation in light.  When it comes to their importance to us humans as visual stimuli, they are not even in the same ballpark as other variations, e.g. sound frequency variation, the tastes of sour, sweet, bitter, or the feel of rough and smooth. Even when it comes to traffic lights, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we were all immediately 100% color-blind.

I would describe to a blind person the intensity of certain colors like bright red or green as being like the punch of strong, bland flavors, but the variation of all colors as being like different kinds of sweet. Those are analogies.  But no, they could never really get what color looks like without seeing it.

Answer 5

if you compare it to sound, then i think so. You could equate it to a frequency of sound (high pitch sounds are violet, going down to a bassy red) with the volume equaling luminance.

Answer 6

the easiest way to answer this question is to ask a congenitally blind person person..

Answer 7

You may have a better imagination than me, but I would have said 'no'.

I am a sighted human being that can see a spectrum of colours. That said, I do not understand what infra-red looks like. I may have seen a representation of it in photographs or night vision films, but I don't know what colour it is.

Asking someone that's never seen any colour to understand what's going on in vision is a much bigger step than that.

Answer 8

It's hard to know if a congenitally blind person can understand color but I would say understanding on its own can be possible if you try explaining what colors are certain things like the sky looks blue, vegetation is green etc, but of course the person will not know what blue or green looks like.