Color Survey Results

Posted byRandall 1,287 Comments on Color Survey Results

Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.
—Herman Melville, Billy Budd

Orange, red? I don’t know what to believe anymore!
—Anonymous, Color Survey

I WILL EAT YOUR HEART WITH A FUCKING SPOON IF YOU AKS ANY MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT COLORS
—Anonymous, Color Survey

Thank you so much for all the help on the color survey.  Over five million colors were named across 222,500 user sessions.  If you never got around to taking it, it’s too late to contribute any data, but if you want you can see how it worked and take it for fun here.

First, a few basic discoveries:

  • If you ask people to name colors long enough, they go totally crazy.
  • “Puke” and “vomit” are totally real colors.
  • Colorblind people are more likely than non-colorblind people to type “fuck this” (or some variant) and quit in frustration.
  • Indigo was totally just added to the rainbow so it would have 7 colors and make that “ROY G. BIV” acronym work, just like you always suspected. It should really be ROY GBP, with maybe a C or T thrown in there between G and B depending on how the spectrum was converted to RGB.
  • A couple dozen people embedded SQL ‘drop table’ statements in the color names. Nice try, kids.
  • Nobody can spell “fuchsia”.

Overall, the results were really cool and a lot of fun to analyze.  There are some basic limitations of this survey, which are discussed toward the bottom of this post.  But the sheer amount of data here is cool.

Sex

By a strange coincidence, the same night I first made the color survey public, the webcomic Doghouse Diaries put up this comic (which I altered slightly to fit in this blog, click for original):

It was funny, but I realized I could test whether it was accurate (as far as chromosomal sex goes, anyway, which we asked about because it’s tied to colorblindness) [Note: For more on this distinction, see my follow-up post]. After the survey closed, I generated a version of the Doghouse Diaries comic with actual data, using the most frequent color name for the handful of colors in the survey closest to the ones in the comic:

Basically, women were slightly more liberal with the modifiers, but otherwise they generally agreed (and some of the differences may be sampling noise).  The results were similar across the survey—men and women tended on average to call colors the same names.

So I was feeling pretty good about equality.  Then I decided to calculate the ‘most masculine’ and ‘most feminine’ colors.  I was looking for the color names most disproportionately popular among each group; that is, the names that the most women came up with compared to the fewest men (or vice versa).

Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among women:

  1. Dusty Teal
  2. Blush Pink
  3. Dusty Lavender
  4. Butter Yellow
  5. Dusky Rose

Okay, pretty flowery, certainly.  Kind of an incense-bomb-set-off-in-a-Bed-Bath-&-Beyond vibe.  Well, let’s take a look at the other list.

Here are the color names most disproportionately popular among men:

  1. Penis
  2. Gay
  3. WTF
  4. Dunno
  5. Baige

I … that’s not my typo in #5—the only actual color in the list really is a misspelling of “beige”.  And keep in mind, this is based on the number of unique people who answered the color, not the number of times they typed it.  This isn’t just the effect of a couple spammers. In fact, this is after the spamfilter.

I weep for my gender.  But, on to:

RGB Values

Here are RGB values for the first 48 out of about a thousand colors whose RGB values (across the average monitor, shown on a white background) I was able to pin down with a fairly high degree of precision:

The full table of 954 colors is here, also available as a text file here (I have no opinion about whether it should be used to build a new X11 rgb.txt except that seems like the transition would be a huge headache.)

The RGB value for a name is based on the location in the RGB color space where there was the highest frequency of responses choosing that name.  This was tricky to calculate.  I tried simple geometric means (conceptually flawed), a brute force survey of all potential center points (too slow), and fitting kernel density functions (math is hard). In the end, I used the average of a bunch of runs of a stochastic hillclimbing algorithm.  For mostly boring notes on my data handling for this list, see the comments at the bottom of the xkcd.com/color/rgb/ page.

Spelling and Spam

Spelling was an issue for a lot of users:

Now, you may notice that the correct spelling is missing.  This is because I can’t spell it either, and when running the analysis, used Google’s suggestion feature as a spellchecker:

A friend pointed out that to spell it right, you can think of it as “fuck-sia” (“fuch-sia”).

Misspellings aside, a lot of people spammed the database, but there were some decent filters in place.  I dropped out people who gave too many answers which weren’t colors used by many other people.  I also looked at the variation in hue; if people gave the same answer repeatedly for colors of wildly varying hue, I threw out all their results.  This mainly caught people who typed the same thing over and over.  Some were obviously using scripts; based on the filter’s certainty, the #1 spammer in the database was someone who named 2,400 colors—all with the same racial slur.

Map

Here’s a map of color boundaries for a particular part of the RGB cube.  The data here comes from a portion of the survey (1.5 million results) which sampled only this region and showed the colors against both black and white backgrounds.

The data for this chart is here (3.6 MB text file with each RGB triplet named).  Despite some requests, I’m not planning to make a poster of any of this, since it seems wrong to take advantage of all this volunteer effort for a profit; I just wanted to see what the results looked like.  You’re welcome to print one up yourself (huge copy here), but keep in mind that print color spaces are different from monitor ones.

Basic Issues

Of course, there are basic issues with this color survey.  People are primed by the colors they saw previously, which adds overall noise and some biases to the data (although it all seemed to even out in the end).  Moreover, monitors vary; RGB is not an absolute color space.  Fortunately, what I’m really interested in is what colors will look like on a typical monitors, so most of this data is across the sample of all non-colorblind users on all types of monitors (>90% LCD, roughly 6% CRT).

Color is a really fascinating topic, especially since we’re taught so many different and often contradictory ideas about rainbows, different primary colors, and frequencies of light. If you want to understand it better, you might try the neat introduction in Chapter 35 ofThe Feynman Lectures on Physics (Vol. 1), read Charles Poynton’s Color FAQ, or just peruse links from the Wikipedia article on color.  For the purposes of this survey, we’re working inside the RGB space of the average monitor, so this data is useful for picking and naming screen colors. And really, if you’re reading this blog, odds are you probably—like me—spend more time looking at a monitor than at the outdoors anyway.

Miscellaneous

Lastly, here are some assorted things people came up with while labeling colors:

Thank you so much to relsqui for writing the survey frontend, and to everyone else who sacrificed their eyeballs for this project.  If you have ideas and want to analyze these results further, I’ve posted the raw data as an SQLite dump here (84 MB .tar.gz file). It’s been anonymized, with IPs, URLs, and emails removed.  I also have GeoIP information; if you’d like to do geocorrelation of some kind, I’ll be providing a version of the data with basic region-level lat/long information (limited to protect privacy) sometime in the next few days. Note: The ColorDB data is the main survey.  The SatOnly data is the supplementary survey covering only the RGB faces in the map, and was presented on a half-black half-white background.)

And, of course, if you do anything fun with this data, I’d love to see the results—let me know at xkcd@xkcd.com.

1,287 replies on “Color Survey Results”

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  3. with the geoIP you should consider doing a GIS sort of map of the distributions of color name response tendencies, like wordiness in descriptions, or tendency toward inappropriate names based on geographical location. of course that might be limited by your audience distribution…

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  7. I didn’t know there was so much information on colour… it makes me question kindergarden teachers.

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  16. I’m pretty sure I spelled fuchsia wrong like 50 times before I googled it. Damn.
    The Geolocation vs color names thing looks awesome. How would i graph that, though…. o__O

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  17. Pingback: revelation of silence » Blog Archive » xkcd color survey

  18. Of last years spent in Santa Barbara, CA, I learned about the origin of a color: KAKI (would it be kahki? or kakhi?); a plant with such a oriental name, actually a tree that produces kakis, a fruit, was brought from Japan.
    From which the military uniform colour came from. Old time kakis were tan or light-brown. Still are. You find them in a few old homes backyeards in SB.
    Present day kakis, the fruit, as sold in Brazilian markets, are redish, tomato-polished like.

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  20. interesting blog post.. glad to know I fall within the statistical median for colour identification (yes, colour.. being a brit and a pedant)

    As a correction for origin of Kaki, a mispronunciation of Khaki, which was the colour of the British Army clothing in Imperial India. Khaki, is a derivative of word ‘Khak’ meaning dust – thereby colour Khaki referring to ‘dirt like’.

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  21. haha! I take full responsibility for the “jesus christ, what is with you and green?” comment.

    No, honestly, that was me. I’m glad you actually found it amusing enough to post to your results, Mr. XKCD man…….I feel so flattered :3

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  22. I wonder did you find different people were angry at the resurgence of what they thought were the same color? I remember when I took the test, I was getting angry at all the blue–my ex’s favorite color.
    You should totally submit this as a paper to scientific journals and get a PhD in spectrum analysis and animal husbandry, by the way.
    Quick story: In my high school physical science class when we began talking about the spectrum, the instructor asked us, “How many colors are there?” The cool kid in the back that was a year older than us spoke up. He said, “Sixty-four.”
    That shit is universally funny.

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  23. One thing that your survey questions didn’t cover (not that I’m criticizing, mind you) is that you didn’t ask if you think like a guy or a woman.

    I’m a woman, and I think like a guy. I’m not a lesbian, just a frustated tomboy. To my knowledge I don’t have a y chromosome-I look very feminine- I just think like a guy. This includes not understanding woman/girl social niceties, conversations, etc.

    I took your test, and couldn’t think of words like fuchsia, magenta, etc. Just pinkish, purplish with a hint of red, etc.

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  25. /I/ spelled fuchsia right…

    I came up with a few long names, but none as good as those… I think the worst I got was “green with a bit of brown and maybe some red”.

    Mostly, it was “light -color-“, “dark -color-“, or just “color”. What can I say? I look at colors like a dude…

    BTW, Taur, does it make a difference?

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  26. Dad gummit Munroe, it’s your fault I learned how to spell Fuschia! Now I have to un-stamp my man card.

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  28. Cool, Windows Blue was included. The exact same blue I named Windows Blue. But I’m sad BSoD Blue wasn’t there.

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  29. Once in a 0000FF Moon I look at the sky. Mars is the FF0000 planet, sometimes above the horizon. During the day you can’t see it because of the 00EEFF sky. Well, sometimes it’s BBBBBB. When the sky turns BBBBBB or DDDDDD the trees don’t look so 33FF99 and the grass is not so 00FF00 as when the sun shines (FFFFFF or FFEE99 according to time of day). Of couse, you stare at the sun at noon, it looks more like JJJJJJ.
    (:-)). <- Randall has this problem too.
    ALL COLOR CODES ARE APPROXIMATIONS.
    I ONLY CARE ABOUT ACCURACY FROM 9 TO 5.

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  30. Oh, my God. You actually read all the answers.
    At the time I’d felt like it was some kind of prank on me. Like, I initially tought I’d answers maybe twenty colour questions, and then it just kept going and I started to hate colours and computers and you. Mostly you.
    I was doing this during class so I hated my teacher too because subconsciously I’d decided he was making me take that survey.

    You should have tested on how long it took before people lost their sanity because I could feel my fingers start to lock up at the idea of having to type another colour and hit enter. When I got home, I couldn’t e-mail people back because I was in Hotmail and I tried to be like, ‘BLUE LIKE THE BACKGROUND IN HOTMAIL’ and his enter, but that didn’t do anything.

    Anyway, now I’m an internet comment windbag. Good day.

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  31. It’s funny… I took this survey the day I saw it on xkcd.com, but this is my first time seeing the results. I’m glad I went up to 138!

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  34. I took the test, and now reading the results, and because it is Monty Python Status day over on Facebook, I wish when I had responded “Blue! No, Yellow!” for at least one color name. Esprit d’escalier.

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  36. @awwnuts: Are you SURE you’re not my friend DyAnn??

    Anyway, I too want to see what the color “penis” looks like. A cursory glance through the Wikimedia Commons leads to me guess it’d be somewhere in the area of D59184.

    Remarkably close to D49795, actually. Perhaps men and women aren’t that different after all?

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  37. Hey! I took this thing, it was fun, but I thought it was a joke until reading the instructions more carefully. I am NOT a RTFM first (caveat emptor, I know).

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  39. Fuchsia is easy to spell if you know the correct pronunciation. It’s a genus of plants as well as the common name of that thing in your Mum’s backyard. In botanical nomenclature there is a correct way to say things, usually based on how the original word would have been pronounced. In this case it’s named after Herr Fuchs, so it’s foooks-ia. Easy.

    This gets confusing if you’re not sure if you’re dealing with an animal or a plant name, since zoological nomenclature doesn’t prescribe or proscribe pronunciation. So for example there’s a correct pronunciation of Guillardia (blue green alga), but this may or may not be identical to how you say Giardia (gut parasite).

    Go figure…

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  40. this is so intense.. you probably wont read this.. or.. judging by your thorough analysis of data.. u will.. im willing to bet you probably will.. and i hope u do.. anyway i digress thank you for providing me with many a laugh and staving off the insanity.. or bringing me closer to it.. i cant remember anymore.. anyway thanks mate

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  41. interesting. this proves that my high school physics teacher was right! women DO vary the color names more than men. So much for equality of the sexes.

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  42. What was the number of colours with “Your mum” in them? I bet it’s not as high as the number of colours that have been in your mum.

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  45. LOVE the map! needs to be widely disseminated as it puts many arguments to rest. Now we know we are not insane; colors are not absolute. They are fields of potential, maybe relative. There may be peace in the Middle East because of this chart!

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  46. Any stats on variation in color names for the same colour presented multiple times in a single user session?

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  47. Pingback: El nombre de los colores: la encuesta de XKCD | IdentidadGeek

  48. That quote up at the very top? “Orange, red? I don’t know what to believe any more!”

    That was me. I’m famous!

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  50. I think it’s only about a 17% probability, but I think it’s fairly possible the person naming 2400 colors a racial slur was someone trying to show the inanity of racism through spam.

    Or he was a jerk.

    Or both.

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