Beyond The Ishihara Test: This Is What Colorblindness Looks Like

Color blindness, though its name suggests otherwise, is not a form of blindness at all. It is a deficiency in the way a person distinguishes certain colors — usually having trouble telling the difference between blue and yellow or red and green.

Being color blind, in most cases, does not mean that a person can only see the world in shades of gray. These people do exist, but most of the time the condition is less severe. The human eye has specialized cells in the retina called rods and cones. The rods are used for night vision and dim light, while the cones are responsible for processing color vision. These cones are sensitive to either red-, green-, or blue-colored light, and must all be functioning correctly to allow a person to see the entire range of colors without a problem.

Color blindness occurs when a cone’s pigment is abnormal or missing. A normal person’s color vision is called trichromacy, referring to the three types of light cones working. People with dichromatic color vision have only two types of cones that can perceive color — those suffering from protanopia and deuteranopia have trouble distinguishing red and green, and people with tritanopia have problems perceiving blue. Very rarely, a person can be born without any cones, which would result in “true” color blindness, or monochromacy.

So what effect does colorblindness have on daily life? Are everyday tasks inhibited by the condition? Check out these images by Doctor Jay Neitz, a professor of ophthalmology and a color vision researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. The photos give examples of what it would be like to live with deureranopia, the type of color blindness that affects red and green. Click "view slideshow" to see how you would do in a colorblind world.