Drew Todahl

04/22/21

DSGN 244

Color Perception and Ocular Impairment

In my project I will be exploring the ways in which we test individuals for color perception as well as how ocular impairment/dyslexia affects color vision.

First I want to describe what ocular impairment actually is. As we all know dyslexia is when individuals switch letters in sentences and cannot track the lines of their reading. Ocular impairment is essentially the same thing the only difference is we understand why it happens. Dyslexia is still much of a mystery though scientist are now beginning to think it has to do with the neuron synapses that connect your visual cortex to the rest of your brain. While dyslexia is caused by brain function, ocular impairment is caused by the muscles controlling ones eye and the inability of them to work together.

Even though these eye impairments are pretty substantial we still use the same systems for testing color vision impairment. The Ishihara Color blindness test has been the staple color perception test since its creation in 1917 by Shinobu Ishihara, a professor at the University of Tokyo.

I have a type of ocular vision impairment called Convergence insufficiency. I constantly am re-reading because my words combine in sentences, but does that mean that I perceive the colors in a painting to combine?

After researching I found that surprisingly individuals with Ocular Impairment/Dyslexia in fact do not combine colors. Weirdly enough it is actually recommended that individuals with Ocular Impairment/Dyslexia should use color overlays when reading.

The color overlays allow for the individuals eye to adjust and in turn create less strain on ones eye. This in turn allows the eyes to work less hard allowing for less chance of visual error.

For this project I researched extensively the structure of the eye and the way in which Ocular Impairment actually works. Sadly the correlation of ocular impairment to color was not what I expected though they did still correlate. This project really hit home for me and It honestly gave me an opportunity to learn more about myself. Fortunately there is still not much research on the topic as we still don't know much about brain function. I was able to find a lot more about Ocular Impairment rather than Dyslexia. This I think is due to the nature of Dyslexia being brain function oriented and we still don't know much about the brain. That being said plastic color overlays are extremely effective in helping with eye strain and vision error, though they could have a negative impact on the environment as they are made from plastic. 

                                                                   Works Cited

NVision. “Types of Vision Tests: What Do They Measure?” NVISION Eye Centers, 2021,              www.nvisioncenters.com/education/vision-tests/.

Rodriguez-Carmona, M. Colour Design: Theories and Applications, by J.L. Barbur,                        Woodhead Publishing, 2017, pp. 43–99.

Spring, Kenneth. “Human Vision and Color Perception.” The Physics of Light and Color -              Human Vision and Color Perception | Olympus LS, www.olympus-                                        lifescience.com/en/microscope-resource/primer/lightandcolor/humanvisionin tro/.

Wymen, Pat. “5 Best Reasons Colored Overlays Help Overcome Dyslexia Symptoms.”                Colored Overlays RSS, 2013, www.coloredoverlays.com/140/5-best-reasons-                    colored-overlays-help-overcome-dyslexia-s ymptoms/