What is Color Blindness?

Answer:
Imagine not knowing if you’re pouring chocolate

syrup or ketchup on your bowl of ice cream or not knowing the color of a traffic light! These activities of daily life for a color blind person can not only be frustrating but life-threatening! One definition of color blindness is, “a condition in which people have difficulty identifying various colors.”

Most people who are “color blind” have at least some level of vision; therefore, the term “color vision problem” is often used. In fact, it is very rare for a person to be totally color blind. The retina, the innermost layer of the eye, senses light entering the eye and sends impulses through the optic nerve back to the brain which then translates these messages into “visual images” that we see. When there is a malfunction in the retina then color blindness can occur.

Hues such as red, orange and yellow appear paler to a person who is color blind. This color deficiency is called protanomaly and is often referred to as “red-weakness.”

Deuteranomaly is considered “green-weakness” and a person with this type of color deficiency has difficulty distinguishing the subtle differences in the red, orange, yellow and green part of the color spectrum.

A person with dichromasy is unable to differentiate between the red, orange, yellow or green hues. For someone with protanopia, the “brightness” of the colors red, orange and yellow is decreased so much that they may confuse reds and black.

Color blindness is usually hereditary; however, color vision problems can occur because of other eye disorders. Although color blindness occurs in both females and males the disorder is more predominant in the male population.