There’s no denying that human imagination is a powerful thing. It has led us to create incredible works of art, literature that transports its readers to other realms, technology that revolutionizes the way we communicate and travel, music and film that makes us laugh, cry, and hit repeat. But our imagination often falls short when trying to conceive of the world from another person’s perspective, especially when it comes to senses. In this episode, we delve into one of the most prominent examples of this: color vision and color vision deficiencies. First, we take you through how color vision works and just how non-universal this experience is. We then explore the origins of color vision and what evolutionary significance it may have held before getting into the discovery of color vision deficiency and its impact on industry. We close out this colorful episode by chatting about some of the latest developments and products geared towards those with color vision deficiency.
| History | Biology |
| Lanthony, Philippe. The history of color blindness. Vol. 14. Wayenborgh Publishing, 2018. | Gegenfurtner, K.R. and Kiper, D.C., 2003. Color vision. Annual review of neuroscience, 26(1), pp.181-206. |
| Yong, Ed. An immense world: How animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us. Knopf Canada, 2022. | Simunovic, M.P., 2010. Colour vision deficiency. Eye, 24(5), pp.747-755. |
| Caine, Nancy G., Alison K. Surridge, and Nicholas I. Mundy. “Dichromatic and trichromatic Callithrix geoffroyi differ in relative foraging ability for red-green color-camouflaged and non-camouflaged food.” International Journal of Primatology 24 (2003): 1163-1175. | Baden, T. and Osorio, D., 2019. The retinal basis of vertebrate color vision. Annual review of vision science, 5, pp.177-200. |
| Carvalho, Livia S., et al. “The genetic and evolutionary drives behind primate color vision.” Frontiers in ecology and Evolution 5 (2017): 34. | Simunovic, M.P., 2016. Acquired color vision deficiency. Survey of ophthalmology, 61(2), pp.132-155. |
| Chace, Archibald Eastwood. “Color blindness in industry.” Journal of the American Medical Association 87.16 (1926): 1258-1261. | Jordan, G., Deeb, S.S., Bosten, J.M. and Mollon, J.D., 2010. The dimensionality of color vision in carriers of anomalous trichromacy. Journal of vision, 10(8), pp.12-12. |
| Dalton, John. Extraordinary facts relating to the vision of colours: with observations. Cadell and Davies, London, 1794. | Bosten, J.M., Robinson, J.D., Jordan, G. and Mollon, J.D., 2005. Multidimensional scaling reveals a color dimension unique to ‘color-deficient ’observers. Current biology, 15(23), pp.R950-R952. |
| Gerl, Ellen J., and Molly R. Morris. “The causes and consequences of color vision.” Evolution: Education and Outreach 1.4 (2008): 476-486. | Almutairi, N., Kundart, J., Muthuramalingam, N., Hayes, J., Citek, K. and Aljohani, S., 2017. Assessment of EnChroma filter for correcting color vision deficiency. Pacific University (Oregon). |
| Hunt, David M., et al. “The chemistry of John Dalton’s color blindness.” Science 267.5200 (1995): 984-988. | Elsherif, M., Salih, A.E., Yetisen, A.K. and Butt, H., 2021. Contact lenses for color vision deficiency. Advanced Materials Technologies, 6(1), p.2000797. |
| Jacobs, Gerald H. “The distribution and nature of colour vision among the mammals.” Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 68.3 (1993): 413-471. | Alexander, J.J., Umino, Y., Everhart, D., Chang, B., Min, S.H., Li, Q., Timmers, A.M., Hawes, N.L., Pang, J.J., Barlow, R.B. and Hauswirth, W.W., 2007. Restoration of cone vision in a mouse model of achromatopsia. Nature medicine, 13(6), pp.685-687. |
| Jacobs, Gerald H. “Variations in primate color vision: mechanisms and utility.” Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 3.6 (1994): 196-205. | Neitz, M. and Neitz, J., 2014. Curing color blindness—mice and nonhuman primates. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in medicine, 4(11). |
| Jacobs, Gerald H. “Primate photopigments and primate color vision.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 93.2 (1996): 577-581. | Hasrod, N. and Rubin, A., 2016. Defects of colour vision: A review of congenital and acquired colour vision deficiencies. African Vision and Eye Health, 75(1), pp.1-6. |
| Jacobs, Gerald H., et al. “Trichromatic colour vision in New World monkeys.” Nature 382.6587 (1996): 156-158. | |
| Kawamura, Shoji, et al. “Polymorphic color vision in primates: evolutionary considerations.” Post-genome biology of primates (2012): 93-120. | |
| Kelber, Almut, and Gerald H. Jacobs. “Evolution of color vision.” Human color vision (2016): 317-354. | |
| Marmor, Michael F., and Philippe Lanthony. “The dilemma of color deficiency and art.” Survey of ophthalmology 45.5 (2001): 407-415. | |
| Mollon, J. D., and L. R. Cavonius. “The Lagerlunda collision and the introduction of color vision testing.” Survey of Ophthalmology 57.2 (2012): 178-194. | |
| Mollon, John D. “The origins of modern color science.” The science of color. Elsevier Science Ltd, 2003. 1-39. | |
| de Moraes, Pedro Z., et al. “The effect of pelage, background, and distance on predator detection and the evolution of primate color vision.” American Journal of Primatology 83.2 (2021): e23230. | |
| Vingrys, Algis J., and Barry L. Cole. “Origins of colour vision standards within the transport industry.” Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics 6.4 (1986): 369-375. | |
| Yokoyama, Shozo, and Naomi Takenaka. “Statistical and molecular analyses of evolutionary significance of red-green color vision and color blindness in vertebrates.” Molecular biology and evolution 22.4 (2005): 968-975. | |
| Further Reading | |
| Deutscher, Guy. Through the language glass: Why the world looks different in other languages. Metropolitan books, 2010. | |
| Sacks, Oliver. The island of the colour-blind: and, Cycad Island. Pan Macmillan, 1997. |
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One thought on “Episode 124 The full spectrum of color vision deficiency”
Erin, I almost laughed when you said something that I have felt so strongly my entire life, “WHY DON’T THEY JUST CHANGE THE COLORS?!” I’ve always wondered why Fire trucks are red when so many are colorblind red. My biggest difficulty, however, was when I was in Australia. My Uncle said, ‘do you want to drive the boat?’ I thought,’Yeah!’ We are on bright blue water, beautiful blue sky and literally everything on land is green with the bushes/ trees. For some reason, they chose red and green buoys to tell you which way to go. At some point he said, “Remember I told you to stay right of the green ones and left of the red ones” Yes, I did remember but I had no idea what he was talking about even when he started screaming, “Go Left, go left, go left!!!!” Fortunately, we did not strike a sand bar. But I always wondered, what idiot would have chosen red and green colored buoys against a green background to tell boaters which direction to go. I never saw the markers unless they were against the blue sky background. And even then, I didn’t know if I was to go right or left.
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