mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
You may or may not have seen today’s Brain Game elsewhere. Even if you have, it’s still a fun challenge and a good mental exercise.
The goal here is fairly simple: you attempt to speak aloud the names of the colors of each word in succession. Not the words, but the color of the words. The first word, for instance, is in pink text, so you’d say “pink” (even though the word printed in pink is “blue”). The challenge is best done with a partner also looking at the screen, to either recite along with you or to check your answers as you go along. Otherwise, you might not realize if and when you’ve made a mistake. Enjoy!
Those of you who are colorblind, please remain quietly at your desks until everyone else has completed the task. Thank you.
Someone should make a colorblind friendly version of this.
posted by Ben on 8-27-2008 at 7:05 am
Is it unusual that I found this exceedingly easy? I’ve never seen this before, but after reading the instructions, I understood what to do pretty well, & did it perfectly, & quickly to boot.
hmmm…
haha, my recaptcha: homeless now
ominous foreboding?
posted by Kathryn on 8-27-2008 at 7:41 am
I was doing great until I hit the ones where the word and color matched. Then I had to do a bit of a mental reset to remember which I was supposed to be doing. I didn’t make any mistakes, but I also couldn’t do it very fast.
posted by Hodge on 8-27-2008 at 8:00 am
That was fun and I did well on it. I just focused my eyes on the corner of each word to see the color, blocking out the entire word from my mind.
posted by Marty on 8-27-2008 at 8:13 am
You’re all on the right track. It can be done correctly if you really focus on the colors and not the words. But yes, it’s difficult to do it with any speed, because the signals start to cross.
And Kathryn? I’m not sure. Perhaps you’re just more focused than most of us. And that’s certainly not a bad thing!
posted by Sandy on 8-27-2008 at 8:29 am
I could do it, but it was sloooooooow.
posted by Rebecca on 8-27-2008 at 8:37 am
I agree with Hodge….its easy until you get to a word where the color and name match up and you start to second guess yourself.
posted by Ben W. on 8-27-2008 at 9:26 am
I remember my daughter watching us do this when she was about three years old. She had no idea why it was interesting to us - it was simple for her!
posted by Betsy on 8-27-2008 at 9:43 am
Got it perfectly and quite fast. Have to thank Brain Age on the DS though for tons of training
posted by Stu on 8-27-2008 at 10:45 am
I agree with Ben, for us colorblind people this was not much fun.
posted by Rick on 8-27-2008 at 11:47 am
I did fine, but had to slow down on the ones where the word was its complementary color. [Like that red “green” up there.]
posted by Aemi on 8-27-2008 at 1:21 pm
I suppose it would be easier if my brain was wired differently. I find that I see the symbols and shapes much more readily than I recogniz color.
Very quicly I fall into identifying the word not the shade of text.
Probably from speed reading for so long.
posted by Jeffrey on 8-27-2008 at 2:50 pm
I think I Cheated, I crossed my eyes a little once the letters blurred I had no distractions, hehe I did it pretty quickly hehe.
posted by ALEX on 8-27-2008 at 4:38 pm
This test (or one very similar to it) was a part of a battery of educational/IQ tests I took several years ago to diagnose a learning disability (I sucked at it)
posted by poppy on 8-27-2008 at 5:18 pm
there’s a flash game with the same idea.
(and an annoying song)
www.freegamesonline.dk/funnygames/puzzlegames/clickcolour/index.php
posted by steph on 9-6-2008 at 8:27 pm
I have pretty bad vision so once I took my glasses off the words were too blurry to confuse me so picking out the colors was pretty easy.
posted by jeff on 10-1-2008 at 3:03 pm