Color-Blindness Glasses Scam

[lpetrich]

Exposing the Color Blind Glasses Scam - YouTube

The glasses themselves have a strong magenta fiilter, so all they do is make the world look more strongly colored. So that's how they seems to work.

Also, for a colored-balloon test, the balloons are marked with names of colors.

I was very suspicious when I learned of this, because color-vision deficiency is vision with only one or two types of functioning retina cone cell instead of the normal three: monochromacy or dichromacy instead of normal trichromacy. There is no way that glasses can restore the missing information -- one would have to restore the missing cones, their nerve connections to the brain, and the appropriate visual processing in the brain.

So the only way that glasses would work is if one could change what colors that they filter. For instance, the most common kinds of color blindness are red-green kinds, where both colors look like yellow. So one could use glasses that can adjust their filtering of red light and green light, so that red objects look alternately bright and dark yellow, and green objects alternately dark and bright yellow, with yellow objects being unchanged.

• Color-Blindness Simulators - what I myself wrote
• Online Color Blindness Simulator | DaltonLens - several algorithms
• Online Color Blindness Simulator | DaltonLens - simplified
• Coblis — Color Blindness Simulator – Colblindor
• Color Blind Vision Simulator | Color Blind Glasses Simulator

 

[Shadowy Man]

I was very suspicious when I learned of this, because color-vision deficiency is vision with only one or two types of functioning retina cone cell instead of the normal three: monochromacy or dichromacy instead of normal trichromacy. There is no way that glasses can restore the missing information -- one would have to restore the missing cones, their nerve connections to the brain, and the appropriate visual processing in the brain.

There is also anomalous trichromacy, which is what I have.

There is more of a spectrum (no pun intended) than you imply with stating “monochromacy, dichromacy or normal trichromacy”.

 

[lpetrich]

There is also anomalous trichromacy, which is what I have.

There is more of a spectrum (no pun intended) than you imply with stating “monochromacy, dichromacy or normal trichromacy”.

One kind of cone being weak but still functional - I concede there.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There is also anomalous trichromacy, which is what I have.

There is more of a spectrum (no pun intended) than you imply with stating “monochromacy, dichromacy or normal trichromacy”.

One kind of cone being weak but still functional - I concede there.

My understanding is that you can have the green cone off frequency, it works but doesn't convey as much information. It's also possible for a woman to have both the off-frequency and correct-frequency cones, they end up seeing more colors than normal.

Personally, I have some red-green impairment. The obvious is normally obvious (but not if it's sufficiently small. I generally can't tell apart a one-pixel-wide line of FF0000 vs 00FF00) but the more subtle things will get me. I'm hopeless at deciding which peaches to harvest and in many situations I can't select good produce. She will show me good and bad and they look the same, and even when I can tell them apart in that situation I often can't tell the general quality level. (Tomatoes are an example--I can generally choose which ones she would prefer, but if the answer is "none" I won't see it.)

 

[Jarhyn]

There is also anomalous trichromacy, which is what I have.

There is more of a spectrum (no pun intended) than you imply with stating “monochromacy, dichromacy or normal trichromacy”.

One kind of cone being weak but still functional - I concede there.

My understanding is that you can have the green cone off frequency, it works but doesn't convey as much information. It's also possible for a woman to have both the off-frequency and correct-frequency cones, they end up seeing more colors than normal.

Personally, I have some red-green impairment. The obvious is normally obvious (but not if it's sufficiently small. I generally can't tell apart a one-pixel-wide line of FF0000 vs 00FF00) but the more subtle things will get me. I'm hopeless at deciding which peaches to harvest and in many situations I can't select good produce. She will show me good and bad and they look the same, and even when I can tell them apart in that situation I often can't tell the general quality level. (Tomatoes are an example--I can generally choose which ones she would prefer, but if the answer is "none" I won't see it.)

I wonder if we're ever going to get the ability to re-dye our cones to add new colors and ranges in this way. I suspect the only thing preventing us from perceiving something new or nuanced is simply the absence of a surface for that information to come in on.

I can tell apart a lot of fine grades of color, too... but I don't know what to look for even when I see difference, when it comes to produce.

 

[lpetrich]

One would do that by getting genes for improved photoreceptor proteins into those cells, and I don't know how well that would work.

 

[bilby]

One would do that by getting genes for improved photoreceptor proteins into those cells, and I don't know how well that would work.

Greg Egan wrote a short story, Seventh Sight, in which people who were congenitally blind are (in the near future) able to get prosthetic eyes, which they then hack to detect a wider range of EM frequencies than the standard software (which mimics 'normal' sight) allows.

 

[Jarhyn]

One would do that by getting genes for improved photoreceptor proteins into those cells, and I don't know how well that would work.

It could as easily work by chemically modifying the existing cones directly, too. It might be a temporary treatment?

And as to needing to hack your eyes to make them use their full capability... Just wait! Eyes by Elon will surely be pay to play just like the cars...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I wonder if we're ever going to get the ability to re-dye our cones to add new colors and ranges in this way. I suspect the only thing preventing us from perceiving something new or nuanced is simply the absence of a surface for that information to come in on.

And it would take a while for our brain to learn how to interpret it.

I can tell apart a lot of fine grades of color, too... but I don't know what to look for even when I see difference, when it comes to produce.

I generally don't, either. She's leagues above me, I don't try unless there's some reason she's not there. My contribution usually only amounts to reaching things for her.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

One would do that by getting genes for improved photoreceptor proteins into those cells, and I don't know how well that would work.

Greg Egan wrote a short story, Seventh Sight, in which people who were congenitally blind are (in the near future) able to get prosthetic eyes, which they then hack to detect a wider range of EM frequencies than the standard software (which mimics 'normal' sight) allows.

I wonder how useful this would actually be, though. Can't go too far below red before we blind our sensors (normal infrared cameras work by subtracting a blank scene from the real scene--a process that inherently costs accuracy) and there isn't too much light to work with beyond the near UV. I think one more sensor in the UV would probably be useful and it would be useful to remove the miswiring of our eyes.

 

[Jarhyn]

I wonder if we're ever going to get the ability to re-dye our cones to add new colors and ranges in this way. I suspect the only thing preventing us from perceiving something new or nuanced is simply the absence of a surface for that information to come in on.

And it would take a while for our brain to learn how to interpret it.

If I understand right, as long as the brain has a way of thinking about something "different", that concept should be capable of grounding. The brain should learn to differentiate fairly promptly, especially if you have a way of explicitly forcing a differentiation, like lights of each different color so you get an XOR, AND, NOT, NAND, etc. at regular intervals. I'm betting a couple weeks or a month would be enough to add the new qualia.

I can tell apart a lot of fine grades of color, too... but I don't know what to look for even when I see difference, when it comes to produce.

I generally don't, either. She's leagues above me, I don't try unless there's some reason she's not there. My contribution usually only amounts to reaching things for her.

I do have some ideas about apples. I haven't seen anything but garbage apples for years except when my husband and I went to New England and want to a major orchard. They had absolutely gorgeous green apples... I don't even remember the types... They were all orchard heirlooms.

For apples I could tell you all about an apple from the shape and color and weight and firmness and the sound it makes when you tap the back of your fingernail, whether it sounds like weak ice or whether it makes a crisp, bouncy pop or click (gentle, or you'll bruise it).

That and I have classic "gay color sense". Kinda proud of that, for all I didn't have any say!