• Questionnaires assessing visual discomfort often show low correlations with discomfort ratings to images or gratings. • This may be because people do not know how to calibrate their answers on a standard discomfort scale. • We compared standard discomfort ratings with novel functional questions which aim to aid calibration. • Correlation with questionnaire items about stripes and patterns improves using this approach. To assess visual discomfort, researchers can use questionnaires that require people to self-reflect on their real-world experiences, or researchers can present images and ask for ratings of discomfort while they are viewed. These two methods are conceptualised to measure a similar construct, but they tend to show surprisingly low correlation. A possible reason is that, when viewing the images, people do not know how to calibrate their answers on a standard discomfort scale, because it requires implicit comparison of one’s own perception with others (e.g., is my perception unusually uncomfortable?). Here we compared standard discomfort ratings with functional questions that aimed to aid calibration (e.g. I would need to immediately look away; I could tolerate it as a poster; I could live with it as wallpaper ). We found correlation with questionnaire questions about stripes and patterns improved with the functional style of question. We conclude that functional questions are helpful for assessing visual discomfort.