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Research Articles

These are series of research articles on various optometric topics

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Rayan Raut
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8 views

Research Articles

These are series of research articles on various optometric topics

Uploaded by

Rayan Raut
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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CHAPTER 23 Color vision is the ability to discriminate a light stimulus as a function of its wavelength. Various sensory and cognitive processes combine to result in the sense of color. The cooperative physical ef- fects of light and object, the physiologic reaction of the visual organ to light, and the psychologic con- text of color perception together produce the pic- ture of our surroundings, thus influencing our re- lationship and attitude toward our environment. This chapter focuses specifically on the reaction of the retina to light stimulus. The details of physical events outside of the body known as optical physies, theories of color, and the higher-order processing, of the visual signal in the brain to produce visual experience are beyond the scope of this chapter. COoLoR AND LIGHT Electromagnetic energy is wavelengths between approximately 380 and 760 nm and causes pho- toreactions on the human retina, which leads to the experience of vision, Although the perceptions caused by light waves cannot be directly measured, optical physics describes the origin of colors as a breaking down of light into its spectrat con- stituents.’ A prism, a transparent solid body with a triangular cross section, causes white, or neutral, light to be refracted so that it is divided into the spectrum of rainbow colors. Short-wavelength vis ible light causes the sensation of violet, and in an uneven transition, the colors blue, blue-green, green, yellow-green, yellow, orange, and red are perceived. For example, red does not noticeably change in perception from approximately 680 nm onward. Monochromatic light is colored light of a single wavelength. The remixing of all colors of light created by a prism, for example with a convex COLOR VISION... THomas P. SAKMAR 578 lens, will create the sensation of white, The sensa~ tion of white can also be created from the mono- chromatic light rays from the short-, middle-, and long-wavelength zones of the spectrum. For exam- ple, mixing blue (435 nm), green (545 nm), and red (700 nm) light produces white. These three light rays can also be combined to create any other color by changing the relative intensities of the in- dividual components. Thus violet-blue, green, and red are called the additive primary colors. The light rays from the mixing of any two thirds of the spectrum cause the sensations of yellow, ma- genta-red, and cyan-blue, ‘These three colors are the so-called subtractive primary colors. Magenta-red, the mixing of rays of the short- and long-wavelength ends of the spectrum, does not itself exist in the nat- ural spectrum. Any two colors are called complemen- rary colors if their additive mixing forms white. ‘Therefore it follows that blending any one additive primary color with the corresponding subtractive primary color forms the whole spectrum, The mix- ing of color pigments or dyes is an example of sub- tractive color mixing. The mixing of a cyan-blue dye and a yellow dye produces green. The cyan- blue dye absorbs, or subtracts, the long-wavelength. part of the spectrum; the yellow dye absorbs the short-wavelength part. Because both dyes reflect the middle-wavelength light, green color is appreciated. Color mixing (subtractive, additive, or propor- tional mixing of pairs of the six primary colors) produces the nearly limitless range of color hues that can be perceived. In addition to additive or subtractive mixing, color can be produced through the scatter of white light. One example is the deep blue-colored sky that is apparent at midday in the summer when the air is clean and dry. The sun's rays pass vertically through the earth’s atmosphere Chapter 25 and the longer wavelengths are scattered. However, al sunrise and sunset the siua’s rays fall on an acute angle and their pathlength is longer, giving rise 10 intense red calor depending on prevailing atmo- spheric conditions. Finally, color can result from in- terference on thin films. Color perception changes swith slight changes in the thickness of a film or with the angle of vision, The mother-of-pearl color of soap bubbles oF the feathers of iridescent birds are examples of so-called interference colors. The human eye differentiates colors according to the color itself (its wavelength), the brightness, and the saturation. Therefore a systematic organi- zation of all colors would be possible only in the three-dimensional system. There is no perceptual basis for a hierarchy of colors, but color wheels gen- erally are used to organize and group chromatic colors according to their appearance, The existence of color is at some level a topic that is equally relevant to philosophy and science. Throughout recorded history, great philosophers and scientists have written on theories of color and color sense and have provided @ rich literature on the subject. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) carried out experiments with a prism that transformed the sci- ence of color from the study of objects to the study of light, jobann Wollgang von Goethe (1749-1832) wrote extensively on the experience of color, ‘Thomas Young (1773-1829) proposed a theory of color vision based on three receptors in the retina that are sensitive to different spectral regions. David Brewster (1781-1868) introduced the term color blindness, which was formerly known as dal- tonisin, afier John Dalton (3766-1844), who de- scribed in detail his own inability to distinguish red. The genetic basis of Dalton’s color blindness was recently determined, by polymerase chain reac tion analysis of DNA extracted from his preserved postmortem eye, to be deuteranopia (see following discussion)’ Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) expanded on the work of Goethe and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (1801-1883) studied afterimages and color mixing and proposed the Talbot-Plateau law of color intensity perception. Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894) extended Young's hypothesis, henceforth called the Young- Helmholiz hypothesis, and devised specteal absorp- tion curves for three visual photoreceptors. Herman Rudolf Aubert (1826-1892) was one of the key contributors to physiologic optics in addition to measuring absolute visual sensitivity and light and dark adaptation. He demonstrated that color ce LOR VISION 579 perception was largely restricted to the foveal re- gion and depended on context in other parts of the retina, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was largely responsible for making the study of color vi- sion 4 quantitative science. He devised methods to study additive and subtractive color mixing and color-defective subjects and developed many of the classifications that are still used today. BIOCHEMISTRY OF COLOR VISION All human visual pigments share a common chro- mophore, which is chemically related to vitamin A,. ‘The 11-cis-structural isomer of the aldehyde of vit- amin A, reacts with an opsin protein to form a pho- toreceptor-pigment complex. The rod and cone cell pigments are all complexes of the same chro- mophore with different, but related, opsin proteins. Interestingly, the genes encoding the opsin proteins ate members of a superfamily of related receptors called G protein-coupled receptors, These receptors are involved in different sensory and intercellular signaling pathways across a wide range of organ- isms, The receptors are integral membrane proteins that all share a common structural motif—seven- transmembrane segments—and they all communi- cate with cellular biochemical signal-transducer proteins in the cellular cytoplasm called het- erotrimeric G proteins, In the case of tod and cone calls, the G proteins are called transducins. Specific forms of transducins are found in rods and cones, although the three cone cell types share a common form of transducin. The unique properties of the chromophore in its opsin-bound state contribute to the key physiologic properties of vision, including color vision. Spectral tuning ata molecular level is related to the so-called opsin-shift. The opsin-shift refers to the change in the absorption of the chromophore when it be~ comes bound to a particular opsin, The magnitude of the opsin-shift varies with each particular visual pigment. In the biochemical amplification cascade of the photoreceptor cells of the vertebrate visual system, the capture of a photon causes irreversible photo- chemical isomerization of the chromophore in the visual pigment. A series of protein conformational changes ensues, and the active pigment becomes a catalyst that converts transducin into its active form. Active transducin modulates cyclic guano sine monophosphate (GMP) phosphodiesterase,

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