UC Irvine

It is generally held that protanopes and deuteranopes see only regions of blues and yellows in the visible spectrum, with an achromatic point, called the neutral point, separating these regions. Considerations of a zone model of color vision for the dichromatic observer led us to predict that a reduced form of red/green discrimination would allow equilibrium blue judgements to be made by protanopes. We show that protanopes can make equilibrium blue determinations with as much reliability as they make neutral point settings. Our results indicate that protanopes but not deuteranopes are able to rely on a reduced form of red/green discrimination in the short wavelength part of the spectrum. Protanopes describe wavelengths longer than the neutral point as yellow. Between the neutral point and equilibrium blue, different wavelengths are described as having varying aspects of blue and green; and short of equilibrium blue they appear reddish blue. For dueteranopes, the spectrum longer than the neutral point appears yellow, and short of it, blue. The results of our experiments showing that the protanopic equilibrium blue is invariant with intensity variations, as it is in the trichromat, add support to the idea of a reduced form of red/green discrimination for protanopes. Our results also allow the evaluation of various models of protanopia.