Color Blindness: What is Color Blindness, Blindness Color Test, Types of Color Blindness, Color Blindness Facts

What is color blindness?

The definition of color blindness is the inability to distinguish one color from another which means that people who suffer from color blindness usually can just grays and blacks but not hues.

Human beings are only animals who are able to see color. It is a gift that many of us take for granted, unable to comprehend seeing the world without bright hues like greens, reds, or blues. However, there are people who suffer from color blindness.

What most people don't understand is that being able to see objects is different then being able to see the color of those objects. A different mechanism is at work. What must it be like to be colorblind unable to distinguish the blueness of the night sky or the lush greenness of the trees after it rains?

The ability to not see color is hereditary or acquired. As people age it is natural to lose some of your ability to see color. Color blindness is a mysterious abnormality to many of us, thus there is not much known about it. What causes color blindness? Why can some people see color but others do not? Is there a cure of color blindness. This article will try to answer those questions.

Why is color important?

Having color blindness can hinder a person in a lot of ways, ways few of us think about. For example, being able to see what are food looks like enhances the culinary experience. Imagine your food, no matter what it is, looking like the color gray. It must be unappetizing to the senses.

Our traffic systems works because everyone knows that red means stop, and green go but what if you can't see the color red or green?

If you are colorblind and you wanted to fly airplanes, or be policemen you would be unable to. Although, color blindness has its disadvantages they are not insurmountable ones.

Categories of color blindness

Some people are colorblind due to hereditary, they inherited the gene from a parent or in some cases both parents.

Monochromacy- people who fall into this category inherited a gene from both parents that results in the color blindness. They can not see colors in blue, green, yellow and red. Their color blindness only allows them to see gray, black and whites in various shades. They also lack visual perception, sensitive to bright lights, and experience quick, reflex eye movements.

Dichromancy- people who fall into this category fall into three types: protanopia where people have trouble discerning the difference between reds, yellows and greens but can make out different types of blues and yellows. Next, is deuteranopia, people with this type of dichromancy have the same problems as individuals with protanopia. They both lack the ability to see red-green. Tritanopia- happens to people in both sexes and is rare form of dichromancy

When a person suffers from Hereditary Tritanopia they are unable to see blue-yellows but discern reds and greens. Individuals with hereditary Tritanopia function in the world very well.

Anomalous Trichromacy can make out colors like greens, reds, blues, yellows and oranges but are unable to see color like the average person. There are two types of anomalous Trichromacy: protanomaly and deuteranomaly. Both are a form of color blindness that is inherited, some people have a mild version of it while others are more severe.

Testing

There are two types of test for color blindness: pattern and arrangement tests. The pattern test uses dots to make a pattern against a background. A person who can not see the patterns are diagnosed with some form of color blindness.

The arrangement test tells the extent of a persons color blindness. A persons color blindness ranges like the difference between a sprained or broken ankle. The test makes a distinction between acquired and hereditary color blindness. The test arranges color chips in the order of likeness.

Conclusion

There is no cure for color blindness if it is inherited, but if it is acquired it can sometimes be corrected if the disease that is causing the color blindness is treated properly.

There are tinted eyeglasses and eyeglasses that allows people with color blindness function better in our society.

People who have color blindness faces challenges daily but manage to live full and productive lives.

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