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by bonobo 3885 days ago
> But there’s still the concern that wearing a colored filter while taking the D15 test will alter the relative brightness of the chips, providing a context cue that can help subjects score higher.

I'm confused about this statement: isn't the whole point of these glasses to provide such clues? I may be more knowledgeable about the subject than the average Joe (I like reading about it), or I may be completely wrong (I'm no pro), but it's obvious to me that real color vision is indeed impossible without gene therapy -- you can't show to the brain what the eyes can't detect, at least not through the eyes. Do they claim it provides real full color vision? I don't even think this is testable, for that matter (qualia etc).

1 comments

Our eyes essentially convert incoming light into three scalar values (one for each of our three cones, S, M, and L). The specific color blindness that this article is talking about is not really color blindness, but rather two of these cones overlapping more than usual. In theory, by filtering out the wavelengths of light in these overlapping regions, you can improve the wearers ability to perceive differences in color. Of course, this also affects percieved brightness, and their is no good way of knowing if the user is telling the difference based on the fact that the signal is being picked up by different cones, or the fact that it is being picked up as a different brightness.
I thought they were talking about dichromatism, I missed the part where they say it fixes anomalous trochromatism only. It makes sense now, thanks.
Deuteranomaly/protanomaly are between them something like 2.5 times as common as deuteranopia/protanopia (other color vision deficiencies besides those four are very rare). So this should still be very helpful to most “colorblind” people.