Less than 1% of people can ace this colour perception test

The test consists of 10 colour-related questions asking users to perform tasks such as selecting the lightest shade of blue from four options. Photo / Lenstore

A colour test, created to find out how well people differentiate between shades of colour, has less than a 1 per cent pass rate, according to research.

Lenstore, an online optical retailer in the UK which made the quiz, tested 2000 people and found less than 1 per cent of those could ace it.

They chose 2000 participants to find out which demographics perform best.

The test consists of 10 colour-related questions asking users to perform tasks such as selecting the lightest shade of blue from four options.

The average score was 6 out of 10 correct answers.

Give it a try:

How well did respondents do overall?

The most common score was 6 out of 10 right answers with 24.1 per cent of respondents getting this result:

• 0 right answers: 0.2% of respondents got this result
• 1 right answer, 0.3%
• 2 right answers, 2.2%
• 3 right answers, 7.4%
• 4 right answers, 13.7%
• 5 right answers, 23.4%
• 6 right answers, 24.1%
• 7 right answers, 17.4%
• 8 right answers, 9.1%
• 9 right answers, 2.0%
• 10 right answers, 0.2%

Lenstore found that women could perceive colour better than men as they scored 57.7 per cent on average, compared to 53.8 per cent for men.

The results also show that colour perception peaks between the ages of 31 and 35, then declines with age.

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They also found that the more languages you speak, the better your colour perception is.

People who speak three languages, in addition to their mother tongue, scored the highest on average with 60 per cent.

• 1 additional language: 53.8%
• 2 additional languages: 57.4%
• 3 additional languages: 60.0%

The way we talk about colour plays an important role in how we perceive it, Lenstore revealed.

English didn't have a word for "orange" until two centuries after the fruit of the same name arrived in Europe. Before then, the colour was called "yellow-red."

Russian speakers have two distinct category words for "light blue" and "dark blue". Something is never "blue" in Russian, it's either "siniy" (dark blue) or "goluboy" (light blue).

Multiple experiments suggest these words influence our perception of colour.