An Integrative Review for Clinical Evaluation of Color Vision: The Right Test for the Right Disease

Abstract

Purpose: To present an integrative review of the different color vision tests, their construction specificities, and their applications in ophthalmological and neurological diseases.

Methods: The literature was searched using the online databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and PsycInfo. The inclusion criteria included English studies, which focused on color measurement or evaluation for clinical diagnosis, involving group comparisons of congenital or acquired color deficiencies and healthy controls, participants over the age of 18 years, and published after 1970.

Results: We provide detailed descriptions of traditional and new computerized color vision tests including the test background, the prioritized level of processing, considerations regarding whether the test is more retinal or cortical tuned, if the task/skill measured is detection, discrimination or performance in color manipulation, and when to apply the respective tests.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the strong potential of color perception assessment in identifying early retinal changes and marking the progression of diseases, sometimes in subclinical conditions, in various ophthalmological and neurological conditions.

Keywords: Color blindness; Color perception; Diagnostic tests; Neurological diseases; Ophthalmic diseases.

Figure 1

On the left we have a representation of the light spectrum between 400 nm and 700 nm, and a representation of the relative absorbance curve of a hypothetical photoreceptor, above a table that shows an example of metameric response between different wavelengths. In the right part we observe the post-receptoral arrangement in receptive fields of center-periphery antagonism, processing the information coming from the different cones L, M, and S, to create the physiological channels of chromatic opposition cone L– cone M and cone S– (cone L + cone M)