Cognition factors in colour identification of colour blind people

Dr. Gyrgy brahm, Dr. Balzs V. Nagy Department of Mechatronics, Optics and Engineering Informatics Budapest University of Technology and Economics Abstract Cognition of colour blind people differs significantly from colour normal observers especially in their colour identification and discrimination. Dichromats lacking one of the three cone photoreceptor types identify less colours and have a general confusion determining colour terms. Our research was aimed to reveal several aspects of their colour cognition with newly developed methodologies and diagnostic equipment. Among other features the results indicate that although their colour vision is altered, their colour identification is aided by non-chromatic cues. Introduction - Severe colour deficiency The cognition of chromatic stimuli is based on the neural signals evoked in the human photosensor, the retina. In photopic ambients the three photoreceptor types determine the intensity and the spectral relation of these signals considering the light stimulus and the spectral sensitivity functions of the photoreceptrors. The created L, M and S signals are then codified by the ganglion cells creating red-green and blue-yellow neural signals according to the opponent colour theory. Colour deficiency is one typical congenital defect of perceiving colour information. It is caused by the spectral shift of the specific photoreceptor sensitivity curves. The so called dichromatic observers have such spectral shifts that the spectral sensitivities of the photoreceptor responsible for middle and long wavelength perception practically cover each other. The two most common types are the protanopy when the long wavelength photoreceptors (protos) spectal sensitivity curve shifts completely onto the middle wavelength receptors (deuteros) and vice versa (deuteranopy). In such severe cases when practically only two photoreceptros are functional instead of three, the colour identification is supposed to be degraded to percieve only purple and yellow for almost all wavelengths along with the perception of white where people with normal colour vision observe turquoise (bluish green). This phenomenom is well known and thus dichromats are often called as people with blue-yellow vision. Colour identification of dichromats - Simulation Our examinations using quasi monochromatic stimuli to test colour identification of dichromats however have provided us with rather interesting results. Dichromats unexpectetdly name colours using terms such as blue, green, orange, brown, red, etc. They generally name red colours correctly on the other hand they frequently exchange colour terms of greens with oranges or browns but not with any other colour terms. Thus the question arises: how can we explain the better colour identification performance of dichromats then it has been expected from their neural chromatic perception calculations. To answer this question we shall take a look at the human luminous efficiency function and its spectral relations. Figure 1 demonstrates the spectral distribution of the luminous efficiency function simulated for the two main dichromat types (protanopes and deuteranopes).

1. bra Dichromat luminous efficiency functions On the left is the protanope, on the right is the deuteranope function. In the case of severe colour deficients the majority of neurons serving colour identification does not evolve or does not provide adequate information for further cerebral processing. Therefore the brain tries to involve other information sources to achieve acceptable colour identification using the spectral properties of the achromatic (luminance) neural channel which has a spectral distribution as described in Fig.1. Analyzing this signal we can conclude to the following colour identification approximations and conditions: red yellow brown/dark green colours with intermediate brightness orange/bright green Looking at Fig.1. the relation between luminous efficiency and wavelength is observable however as the function is symmetric it takes similar values on both sides of the peak. Fortunately the third photoreceptor type (the short wavelenght sensitive tritos) helps in determining colours on the blue side of the spectrum whenever darker stimulations appear. Thus dark stimulations can only mean a red identification when the short wavelength range is not involved. Similarly the bright colours aorund the functions peak can only be related to yellow terms. On the other hand the indentification of greens and oranges (browns) can be rather confusing. As the tritos sensitivity is relatively low in the green identification range it cannot help to ditinguish it from orange or brown therefore a frequent confusion of these colour terms is expected in dichromat cases and these generally occur in their colour identification tests. when the observed colour is dark when the observed colour is bright

Simulated results for dichromat colour identification of monochromatic stimuli: c Wide yellow perception range (520-700 nm) d Red perception e Green perception f Orange perception g Brown perception h Confuses green with brown / green with orange i Percieves white instead of turquoise

Colour identification of dichromats Test results

Criteria confuses Patient wide yellow sees: red sees: green sees: orange sees: green/brown brown green/orange M.L. X X X X protanopy white sees Diagnosys

M.A.

protanopy

H.P. E.K. H.F. M.Zs.

X X X

X X X X

X X

X X

protanopy deuteranope protanopy

X X

X X

X X X

deuteranope

Summary As a summary of our study we can state that the simulations agree well with test results thus dichromats (severe colour deficients) do include the luminous efficiency function as an aid in their colour perception and therefore their colour identification results are significantly better than it is ecpected from calculations applying their chromatic neural signals only.

References
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