How good is YOUR colour perception? Take deceptively difficult test

It’s something that most of us learn as toddlers.

But a new test will have you questioning everything you thought you knew about colours.

The ‘What’s My JND?’ test shows you two colours and asks you to click the line between them. 

This might sound easy, but as you progress through the game, the colours become more similar – making finding the line much trickier. 

‘You see two colours. Click on the line between them. That’s it. It starts easy. It does not stay easy,’ the game’s instructions explain.  

‘Each round the colours get closer together until we find your Just Noticeable Difference – the smallest colour change you can actually see.’

The game usually takes around 40 rounds, with the average score coming out as 0.02. 

So, can you do any better? 

The game is the brainchild of software engineer, Keith Cirkel, who set out to understand ‘just how precise is precise enough’ when it comes to colours on a screen.

To play, visit the game here, and tap or click the white button that reads ‘Let’s go’. 

Each round, you’ll be shown two colour blocks on your screen, and all you need to do is find the boundary. 

After each guess, you’ll be told if you got it right, or if you were wildly off. 

In the early stages, you’ll see two very different colours – grey and blue, brown and orange, or purple and blue, for example. 

However, as the game goes on, the shades will become more and more similar. 

At the end of the game, you’ll be given your score, and told how it stacks up against the other people who have played it. 

‘Rough. But look, I once failed a colour vision test because the room had fluorescent lighting. Environment matters. Try again in a dark room with your brightness cranked. Or don’t. I’m not your mum,’ a message reads if your score is low. 

In contrast, if you nail it, you might see a message saying: ‘Genuinely remarkable. You sailed past the theoretical human limit like it owed you money. I’d accuse you of cheating but I don’t actually how you’d cheat at this.’ 

If you nail the test and want more of a challenge, you’ll be happy to hear that Mr Cirkel has also created a Hard Mode. 

In this version, you’ll be shown nine squares – eight the same colour and one that is different. All you have to do is find the odd one out. 

The game has proved popular, with many players taking to X to discuss their scores. 

‘This is great fun. How good is your colour perception? What are the finest shades you can distinguish? Apparently I’m a bit special,’ one user tweeted. 

Another replied: ‘Some were just completely uniform to me. I had no idea. Had to keep tilting my screen all ways to try to spot a border but still ended up guessing.’

And one joked: ‘Not bad considering I’m colourblind.’