Various Unique Facts About Color Blindness

Color blindness or more precisely Color Vision Deficiency (CVD) is a term to describe the lack of perception sensitivity to certain colors. Color blindness is a commonly used term, although it is misleading if interpreted literally because people who have this condition can still see colors, even though they cannot see the difference between several complementary (contrasting) color pairs.

Color vision deficiency has nothing to do with visual acuity, and this condition is most often caused by hereditary conditions. The weakness of distinguishing red and green is the most common form of color blindness, which is around 99%. Blue and yellow vision deficiencies also exist, but that is rare and no general test is available for it.

What is the most disturbing thing for people who are color blind?

The following are some of the unique things that can upset a person who is color blind:

• When grilling a piece of meat, people with red color deficiency cannot tell whether the meat is raw or cooked. In addition, many also can not distinguish between green tomatoes and red tomatoes or between soy sauce and chocolate syrup. There are also people who buy and bite raw bananas, because they cannot tell if they are yellow or green, and even natural ingredients make it more difficult to distinguish colors.


• Some foods may look disgusting for individuals who are color blind. For example, a plate full of spinach will be seen as cow dung.


• However, they can distinguish oranges and lemons, because oranges appear to have a lighter yellow color compared to lemons.


• A person who is color blind generally cannot interpret chemical testing equipment for pool water, test strips for hard water, soil, or water pH, because they depend on subtle color differences.


• Many people who are color blind cannot guess whether a woman is wearing lipstick or not. Even more difficult, if they have to distinguish between those with blonde hair with blue eyes and those with red hair and with green eyes.


• Lack of vision in color can also interfere with children who are affected at a young time. At school, he would have trouble picking up blue crayons to color the sea.


• They will also be confused to see bi-color and tri-color on the LED (Light Emitting Diodes), are the lights flashing red, yellow, or green? The same problem also occurs with traffic lights.

Various types of color blindness

1. Red-green color blindness

The most common type of this condition is caused by the loss of photopigments cone red (Protan) or green cone (deutran).

Types of red-green color blindness:

• Protanomaly : The colors red, orange, and yellow turn greenish and the colors are not too bright.


• Protanopia : The red color will be black. While the colors orange, yellow, and green, all will appear to be yellow.


• Deuteranomaly : Yellow and green will look more reddish, and it is difficult to distinguish violet and blue.


• Deuteranopia : The red color will be brownish yellow and green to beige.

2. Blue-yellow color blindness

This condition is less common than red-green. This is usually caused by a loss photopigments cone blue (Tritan).

Types of blue-yellow color blindness:

• Tritanomaly : The color blue will become green and it is difficult to distinguish yellow and red from pink.


• Tritanopia : The blue color will appear green, while the yellow color will appear to be violet or light gray.

3. Total color blindness

People with total color blindness (monochromacy) cannot see colors at all and their visual acuity may have an effect.

Types of Monochromacy:

• Cone monochromacy : People with monochromacy will have difficulty distinguishing colors, because the brain needs to compare signals from different types of cones  (red, green, and blue) to see colors. When there is only one cone that works, this comparison is not possible. People with blue cone monochromacy may also have poor visual acuity, nearsightedness, and uncontrolled eye movements (nystagmus). Cone monochromacy is an autosomal recessive disorder.


• Rod monochromacy or achromatopsia : This is a rare type of monochromacy and is the most severe form of color blindness. This is usually present from birth. None of the cone cells have functional photopigments . People with this level of monochromacy see the world in black, white, and gray. People with rod monochromacy tend to be photophobic, very uncomfortable in bright environments. Rod monochromacy is an autosomal recessive disorder.

Other facts

Another rare form of CVD is unilateral dichromacy which affects people by having one normal eye and one color blind eye. For every color blind disease, there is no treatment to treat this condition, but that does not mean people who have color blindness have a significant disability. At one time, the US army found that people with color blindness could see color camouflage where people with normal color vision could be fooled by it. In fact, a decrease in color signal can make textural and brightness differences clearer.