Debunked the effectiveness of glasses for color blind people

IMAGE: The UGR researchers posing with the EnChroma® glasses for colorblind people studied in this research. From left to right: Luis Gómez, Eva Valero, Javier Hernández, Miguel Ángel Martínez and Rafael… view more

Credit: University of Granada

The EnChroma® glasses, commercialized by a North American company, do not improve color vision for color blind people or correct their color blindness, and their effect is similar to that of other glasses such as the ones used for hunting

48 color blind people participated in this research, carried out at the UGR Department of Optics, after a public call to which more than 200 volunteers responded

One of the authors of this research is also color blind, and he carries out his research in the field of color vision

The recent commercialization of theEnChroma®glasses has generated great expectations among the color blind thanks to a strong campaign in social networks and media. They hoped to see new colors or even correct their color blindness by using said glasses.

The North American company manufacturing them advertises an improvement in color vision for certain types of color blindness, protan and deutan, by extending the range of colors perceived by the subject without affecting the colors that are already distinguished without glasses. In fact, on their website,EnChroma®states that their glasses “alleviate red?green color blindness, enhancing colors without the compromise of color accuracy” but claiming that their glasses “may not work” for severe red?green deficiency.

One claim on the company’s website (at least until October 2017) was that their glasses “are designed to improve the everyday experience of color vision”. However, that claim has been recently substituted by a more subtle sentence: “the glasses are an optical assistive device for enhancement of color discrimination in persons with color blindness; they are not a cure for color blindness”, pointing out that “results vary depending on the type and extent of color vision deficiency per individual.”

In an article published in Optics Express, one of the most relevant journals with a great impact in the field of optics, researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) have debunked the effectiveness of these glasses for color vision deficiency (CVD), proving that theEnChroma®glasses don’t make color blind people’s vision comparable to that of people without color blindness.  [… continued on original website]

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