Color Categorization and Naming in Inherited Color Vision Deficiencies

Synonyms

Dichromat color naming

Definition

Color categorization and naming behaviors of human observers that experience forms of color vision deficiency called “dichromacy.” Such deficiencies are sex linked and predominantly affect males and are due to errors in photopigment expression or functioning, or to the failure to inherit the genetic precursors for the expression of a normal set of retinal photopigments.

Color Naming and Categorization in Color Deficients

Human color perception is categorical. Light diffracted through a prism provides a visible spectrum spanning continuously from 400 to 700 nm in the wavelength interval that readily appears to the human eye as a smooth juxtaposition of colored bands of different width. By adding to the visible spectrum a mixture of spectral lights, Isaac Newton described a color circle with its different sectors as violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red (Fig. 1) [1]. For the great majority of the Caucasian population (96 %),...