2010/07/01 by Gabriele Jordan, S S Deeb, Jenny M. Bosten +1 · 159 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Medicine · Neuroscience · #Artificial intelligence #Color vision #Computer science #Curse of dimensionality #Medicine #Optics #Pattern recognition (psychology) #Physics #Population #Retinal Development and Disorders #Trichromacy #Visual perception and processing mechanisms #melanin and skin pigmentation
paper · doi:10.1167/10.8.12
published in Journal of Vision 10(8), 12 (Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology)
openalex publication_date 2010/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
Some 12% of women are carriers of the mild, X-linked forms of color vision deficiencies called "anomalous trichromacy." Owing to random X chromosome inactivation, their retinae must contain four classes of cone rather than the normal three; and it has previously been speculated that these female carriers might be tetrachromatic, capable of discriminating spectral stimuli that are indistinguishable to the normal trichromat. However, the existing evidence is sparse and inconclusive. Here, we address the question using (a) a forced-choice version of the Rayleigh test, (b) a test using multidimensional scaling to reveal directly the dimensionality of the participants' color space, and (c) molecular genetic analyses to estimate the X-linked cone peak sensitivities of a selected sample of strong candidates for tetrachromacy. Our results suggest that most carriers of color anomaly do not exhibit four-dimensional color vision, and so we believe that anomalous trichromacy is unlikely to be maintained by an advantage to the carriers in discriminating colors. However, 1 of 24 obligate carriers of deuteranomaly exhibited tetrachromatic behavior on all our tests; this participant has three well-separated cone photopigments in the long-wave spectral region in addition to her short-wave cone. We assess the likelihood that behavioral tetrachromacy exists in the human population.