Effect of Color Filter Lenses on Color Vision Screening Tests

Details

• Creators:
  Erickson, Austin ; Seemiller, Eric S ; Lee, Kassandra ; Johnson, Danae A ; Winterbottom, Marc D
• Corporate Creators:
  KBR Laboratories, Inc ; Air and Space Biosciences Division, Operational Based Vision Assessment (OBVA) Laboratory
• Corporate Contributors:
  Air Force Research Laboratory (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Color vision
  • Aviation medicine
  • Color blind persons
  • Vision tests
  • Transportation careers
  • Occupational safety
  • Transportation safety
• Publication/ Report Number:
  AFRL-RH-WP-TR-2026-0090
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Aviation Administration. Office of Aerospace Medicine. Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI)
• Description:
  There is significant variation in human color vision phenotypes. This variation can lead to color perception deficits, known as color vision deficiency (CVD). CVD can impact the safety of operations in transportation-related industries, prompting the implementation of color vision-related occupation safety screening standards. In the aviation community, both civilian and military authorities require adequate color vision metrics. In response, a number of commercially available products have been designed to help individuals with CVD pass color vision screening tests, with mixed results. This investigation addresses one such device, the Colormax Color Correcting System (Colormax, Baltimore, MD), a form of color-filtering eyewear. To test the efficacy of this device, we obtained Colormax lenses custom fit for 6 individuals with CVD and measured their color vision status on a number of different screening tests. For 2 deuteranomalous individuals, the Colormax system led to improvement on the screening test. For 4 protanomalous individuals, the system improved the scores on the R-Cone (red) subtest but led to failure on the G-Cone (green) subtest. Further, we tested these individuals on a simulated aviation task involving color discrimination and found little or inconsistent improvement with the use of the lenses. These results suggest that this particular color-correcting lens system leads to inconsistent improvement in color vision screening tests and simulated aviation task performance.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  FA8650-21-C-6277
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/93865/dot_93865_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 3.03 MB]
• Collection(s):
  FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c42709de586b151ade5ce0fd8cb6f6f5015dde3e8c77762a9d6e29a9a6e10b0f0f10cc14e5a98d1f13111014b6648d61b1d86dd1ff18da9208812eb08f2ac9bf