[Reading Time : 5 min | Date : 24, February 2023 | Author : Omar Setty ]
Color blindness (deficiency in color vision) is a reduced ability to see colors or the differences in colors. It can affect everyday color-related tasks like selecting ripe fruit or choosing clothes, as well as safety-related tasks like reading traffic lights.
Although disability from color blindness is considered minor, the use of color in security systems excludes color blind people from many occupations. Screening for color blindness in these occupations is done with color vision tests, often the Ishihara test.
There is no cure for color blindness, but color vision can be controlled with color correction apps or glasses. Color blind glasses, or color correction lenses, are light filters, usually in the form of glasses or contact lenses, that are designed to relieve color blindness, bring poor color vision closer to normal color vision, or make certain computer tasks easier.
Despite the virus status, the scientific literature is generally skeptical about the effectiveness of color correction lenses .
One in 12 Men (8%) and one in 200 women are color blind. Red-green color blindness, a broad term for the two most common types of color blindness, deuteranopia and protanopia, affects the lives and work of tens of millions of people.
While people with normal color vision can see over a million shades and hues, red- and green-blind people only see about 10% of colors.
If you suffer from any type of color deficiency, you know how difficult it can be to complete some everyday tasks, from deciphering seemingly confusing information on a confusing colored chart to distinguishing between red and green lights at an intersection.
Seventy-Five Percent of Colour Blind People Experience Challenges at Work
In the largest known study of its kind, EnChroma – creators of glasses for colour blindness – today announced the results of a workforce survey spotlighting the frustration and obstacles that tens of millions of workers with colour blindness face every day at work.
Red Green Colorblind at Work
According to a recent workplace accessibility survey of 810 color deficient respondents by EnChroma, 9 of 10 people with color vision deficiency (CVD) stated that identifying colors correctly plays a role in their job.
Seventy-five percent reported that being red green color blind slows them down at work. Two-thirds have trouble interpreting color-coded materials and over 20% can’t perform certain work that requires accurate color-identification.
“I work in the nuclear power industry where color has many important roles, from safety signage and red/green indicator lights to being able to differentiate between colored wires, and I’ve always had to have someone check my work,” said Zachary Rowland, a color blind maintenance supervisor for a nuclear power plant and National Guardsman.
The Solution? : Color Blind Glasses
The survey, conducted by EnChroma, which invented the first scientifically proven-effective color blind glasses, reports that, despite the obstacles faced on a daily basis by tens of millions of color blind workers in a vast number of fields, 80% believe EnChroma glasses for color blindness could help them do their jobs better.
Moreover, Human Resources, Safety and Accessibility Managers should take note that 63% say the glasses might save them time, improve productivity and make them feel more confident.
“Performing industrial maintenance involves eye hazards all day and EnChroma safety glasses protect your eyes while giving you the benefit of enhanced color vision working indoors and outdoors,” said Kyle Scholz, a color blind member of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Mount Sterling, Ohio. “The glasses are also super comfortable, which is a must when wearing safety glasses, and they look good too.”
Is Color Blindness a Disability?
In the United States, color blindness is not considered a disability by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
However, Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) is so common that many employers are realizing that supporting their color blind employees is important for reducing daily frustrations and enhancing productivity.
Whether you’re a color blind pilot, color blind electrician, or everyday office worker, color blind glasses are a reasonable accommodation that can enhance your life and improve your work.
For others who are red green color blind and need protective eyewear, color blind safety glasses could help them perform their jobs more efficiently, effectively, and confidently.
Through EnChroma’s Color Accessibility Program, museums, libraries, school districts, and state parks are making Enchroma glasses available to visitors who may never have seen the full spectrums of color that art and nature have to offer.
A recent Fox News story describes the program in action at the Springfield Art Museum, while ABC News covered the JN Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge’s recent adoption of EnChroma glasses.
For employers, participating in EnChroma’s Workplace Color Accessibility Program can enhance productivity and facilitate a culture of support and inclusion for red green color blind staff.
Many people don’t realize they’re color blind until adulthood, often if they enter the military and take the Army color blindness test. In under two minutes employees can test their color vision by taking EnChroma’s online color blind test, which is similar to the Ishihara test, here!
Varieties
There are several kinds of lenses that claim to increase accuracy in color-related tasks. The lenses may be eyeglasses, contact lenses or handheld lenses, but are divided in this article according to their working principle.
Most lenses are intended for red-green color blindness, though some lenses are also marketed for blue-yellow color blindness. All lenses are passive optical filters, so can only subtract/attenuate selective wavelengths of light. However, there are large variations on this theme:
Disparate lenses: using different filters over each eye
Monocular lenses: using a filter on only one eye
Binocular lenses: using the same filter over both eyes
Disparate lenses
The idea of using colored filters as color correcting lenses originated from August Seebeck in 1837. In 1857, James Clerk Maxwell constructed red and green glasses according to Seebeck's theory.
Seebeck noticed that red and green lenses change the relative luminosity of colors that the red-green colorblind usually saw as metamers and the subjects could thereby estimate the correct color. Based on these results, Maxwell hypothesized that color perception would improve after prolonged exposure to the glasses.
Red-green disparately tinted lenses are not currently commercialized, likely because the resulting color vision is highly distorted (making color-naming tasks difficult) and the different lens colors are not aesthetic.
However, a modern Swedish invention called the SeeKey uses red and green lenses to help the user identify colors. The lenses are not worn over the eyes, but are handheld. The user alternates looking between the two lenses and can infer a color by the relative brightness changes between the two lenses and direct vision.
For example, red-green colorblind subjects routinely confused green and orange; using the SeeKey, orange would appear lighter through the red filter and darker through the green filter (relative to no filter). Using the lenses during the Ishihara test achieve a 86% improvement. Unlike other color correcting lenses, the SeeKey is not intended to be worn consistently, and is only used when required for a color task.
Monocular lenses
Transmittance of various monocular color correcting lenses superimposed onto the normalized spectral sensitivities of the cone opsins of a color normal observer.
Monocular lenses are usually red-tinted contact lenses worn over a single (the non-dominant) eye.
These lenses are intended to leverage binocular disparity to improve discrimination of some colors. Compared to disparate lenses, one eye is left unfiltered in order to preserve a realistic perception of colors. Examples of this technology include X-chrom (1971; manual) and Chromagen (1998).
A 1981 review of various studies to evaluate the effect of the X-chrom contact lens concluded that, while the lens may allow the wearer to achieve a better score on certain color vision tests (specifically pseudoisochromatic plates like the Ishihara test), it did not correct color vision in the natural environment. or practical industry.
The improvements in pseudoisochromatic plates is from a selective (for some colors) change in brightness, thereby introducing achromatic contrast to the images, rather than an increase in chromatic contrast.
In fact, despite the claim of binocular disparity leading to color vision improvements, Ishihara test results actually improved when the dominant (unfiltered) eye was covered during the test.
Although still commercialized, monocular filters are considered obsolete, since they lead to reduced visual acuity, changes in apparent velocity perception, visual distortions (such as the Pulfrich effect) and an impairment of depth perception.
These side effects can make monocular lenses a liability when intended as a solution to color blindness.
Binocular lenses
Binocular lenses apply the same filter to both eyes. They do not use binocular disparity (like monocular lenses) or temporal disparity (like the SeeKey) to extract information about color. Tinted filters & Notch filters are two types of binocular filters, classified by the shape of their transmittance curves.
Highlights from the EnChroma survey
75% of colour blind people ask coworkers to verify colours on a weekly or daily basis (e.g., wires, medicine labels, chemicals, graphs, drawings or other items) with 31.28% replying ‘Almost Daily’ and 43.47% ‘A Few Times a Week.’
More than three out of four colour blind workers report frustration or delays on the job due to colour blindness, with 35.59% replying ‘Almost Every Day,’ and 41.85% ‘Occasionally’ (about 1x per week).
More than half worry colour blindness could cause them to make mistakes (51.51%) at work. 80% believe EnChroma glasses for colour blindness could help them do their jobs better (80.18%), while 63% say the glasses might save them time, improve productivity and make them feel more confident.