If something is red but you can't see it, is it still red?

Many people are misinformed on what color blindness actually is. People who have not had knowledge about this usually jump to the conclusion that it is when people can only see in black and white. That is a serious misconception. Color blindness, or color vision deficiency disorder is when someone is unable to distinguish between colors. Another misconception is that you can only become color blind if you are born with it. This is also untrue. Although the majority of color blindness cases do deal with genetics, it can also happen through damage to the eye, nerve, and brain. It can also be contracted through certain chemical exposure. One thing that is very true about color blindness is that it is most common in males. It is very rare to colorblind female who was born this way.

Color blindness comes in many different forms. The most common red-green hereditary photoreceptor disorders. The two different categories in the red-green hereditary photoreceptor disorders department are Monochromacy and Dichromacy. Monochromacy is the complete lack of ability to distinguish between colors. This usually happens gradually over a period of time. Another kind is Rod Monochromacy. Rod Monochromacy is a non-progressive ability to distinguish colors. Non-functioning retinal cones usually cause this. Light sensitivity and poor vision can cause this type of color blindness. The second type of this disorder is called Dichromacy. This is when one of the three basic color mechanisms in your brain is non-functioning or completely absent. The three types of Dichromacy Color Blindness are called protanopia, deuternopia, and tritanopia. Someone with protanopia sees mostly shades of yellow and blue in a standard rainbow.
Deuternopia causes someone to see tints of yellow and blue in a standard rainbow. Since the most severe of the three is tritanopia it has the biggest effect on the standard rainbow. This disorders causes the individual to see tints and shades of pink and blue instead of red, yellow, green, indigo, and violet. All of the colors seen in all of the types of color blindness are very similar and very hard to determine which is which.

How do you know if you have color vision deficiency disorder? There are many ways for someone to figure out that they are color blind, but the official test is called an Ishihara Color Test. Many people have seen these and I believe everyone has taken them in grade school. These test look like a bunch of colored dots. The dots have a hidden picture in them, usually a number or a letter. The picture or image is done in different color dots, making it easily recognizable for the normal, but for a colorblind eye it is almost invisible.
The Ishihara tests have strategically chosen colors to help identify color blindness. The colors chosen are ones that colorblind people often cannot distinguish between. These test are easy a painless and take less then a minute.

Color blindness is not a deadly disorder. Many people live functioning lives and have color vision deficiency disorder. Color is a beautiful thing and many people do take it for granted, but color blindness is not the end of the world.



All information gathered from different searches on Wikipedia.org.