Affiliations: [a] Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
| [b] The Molecular Mind Laboratory, IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca, Italy
| [c] School of Optometry, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
| [d] Child Sight Institute, Jasti V Ramanamma Children’s Eye Care Center, L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Kabilan Pitchaimuthu, Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, University of Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 11, 20146 Hamburg, Germany. Tel.: +49 40 428382623; E-mail: [email protected].
Abstract: Background:Color vision has been consistently shown to be unaffected in animals that are raised in dark or in color-deprived environments. However, there are only a few studies that directly addressed the effect of congenital visual deprivation in color perception in humans. Objective:The goal of the current study was to assess the effect of congenital visual deprivation on color vision using a panel based color arrangement test. Methods:We investigated the recovery of color vision using the Farnsworth D15 test in a group of individuals who had experienced visual deprivation since birth due to bilateral dense congenital cataracts before undergoing cataract-reversal surgery (Congenital cataract, CC, n = 12). In addition, we tested two groups of control participants: (1) individuals who had had non-dense congenital cataract or developed cataract later in their childhood (Developmental cataract, DC, n = 10), and (2) sighted controls with normal or corrected to normal vision (n = 14). Based on the methods proposed by Vingrys and King-Smith (1988), we derived the following metrics of color vision performance: (1) total error score, (2) confusion index, (3) confusion angle, and (4) selectivity index. Results:All of the measured indices of color vision performance were unaltered by a period of congenital visual deprivation. Conclusions:Our results support the view that, development of visual functions such as color discrimination and color arrangement does not depend on typical visual experience during a sensitive phase in early childhood.
