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Scientists debunk the effectiveness of EnChroma glasses for colorblind people
The recent commercialization of the EnChroma glasses has generated great expectations among the color blind thanks to a strong campaign on social networks and the media. Users of the glasses hoped to see new colors or even correct their color blindness.
The North American manufacturer advertises an improvement in color vision for certain types of color blindness, protan and deutan, by extending the range of colors users perceive without affecting the colors that are already distinguished without glasses. In fact, on its website, EnChroma states that their glasses "alleviate red-green color blindness, enhancing colors without the compromise of color accuracy," but say that their glasses "may not work" for severe red-green deficiency.
[...] In an article published in Optics Express, researchers from the University of Granada (UGR) have debunked the effectiveness of these glasses for color vision deficiency (CVD), proving that the EnChroma glasses don't make color blind people's vision comparable to that of people without color blindness.
This UGR research involved 48 people with color blindness, after a public call to which more than 200 volunteers responded. The researchers used two complementary strategies to evaluate the effectiveness of the glasses. The first strategy consisted of evaluating the color vision of the participants with and without glasses using different types of tests: the Ishihara test (recognition) and the Fansworth-Munsell test (arrangement). Additionally, they used a test based on the X-Rite Color Chart, which evaluates subjective color naming.
The second approach for evaluating the effectiveness of the glasses consisted of using the spectral transmittance of the lenses to simulate different observers, which allowed the researchers to evaluate the changes in color appearance.
[...] This study carried out by the UGR shows that a color-blind person using the EnChroma glasses will not perceive new colors, but rather sees the same colors in a different way.
"This makes it possible for some individuals using these glasses to distinguish some colors, but to the detriment of others, which will be now confused. Even though a color filter such as that used by the EnChroma glasses may change the appearance of colors, it will never make color vision more similar to a normal observer's vision," the authors state.
[...] Additionally, during the research, the observers were asked to look at their surroundings with the glasses and to subjectively assess the possible improvement. None of the participants noticed any improvement to the colors of their surroundings when looking through the glasses, except for one female participant with very mild deuteranomaly.
The results show that the glasses specifically used in this study don[sic not confer any improvement in the recognition or arrangement color blindness tests. Therefore, the glasses cannot improve scores in professional screening tests, contrary to what the company claims on its website.
L. Gómez-Robledo et al, Do EnChroma glasses improve color vision for colorblind subjects?, Optics Express (2018) (open, DOI: 10.1364/OE.26.028693)
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Monday October 29 2018, @08:04PM (3 children)
I got taken in by this stupid guerrilla ad campaign, and I hate it. I never bought the things (no one close to me is color blind), but I genuinely believed they worked based on stupid-ass youtube videos.
As much as I've made this about myself and being a fuckin dupe: fuck everyone making medical claims without research support, put them in jail for fraud. Every time.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 29 2018, @09:07PM
Yeah, that rings a bell:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/01/17/logan-paul-colourblind-lie-condition-7237198/ [metro.co.uk]
https://www.reddit.com/r/h3h3productions/comments/6qn0vr/proof_that_logan_paul_is_not_colourblind/#siteTable [reddit.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:45PM
I was fooled too.
I couldn't fathom how it could possibly work but I suspended my disbelief because it seemed like such an easy lie to disprove.
Oh well live and learn.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 30 2018, @11:41AM
I haven't seen the youtube videos, but saw a thing on the Innovation Nation TV show about them. I remember thinking that if they'd had these things when I was born, my dad would have been an indoor wireman rather than a lineman, because he was color blind (that term annoyed him; he could see color but couldn;t tell red from green).
Now I see that he would have still been a lineman because he would still flunk the color test. Watching a video of someone wearing them for the first time with their jaw hanging down in wonder sure fooled me!
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Monday October 29 2018, @08:18PM (1 child)
It has taken this long?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday October 30 2018, @09:36AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @08:40PM (10 children)
I never saw claims it creates color vision in colorblind people.
But what it does do is to enhance separation, i.e. stimulation distance of colors.
I've got a pair, they work.
Naturally I can't tell certain shades of dark green, dark brown and dark red apart, which sucks because I design websites.
But with the glasses I can see these differences, that is to say I can see they are different even though I can't exactly explain how or why they are different.
Before I had these glasses, I would have lots of people ask. Why'd you use that shade of red/brown? When I thought it was something else entirely.
Eventually I learned to memorize the hexcodes of the colors that people found pleasing together.
With these glasses, I can see how things come together or clash, although I have serious doubts I'm seeing what others are seeing.
My TV has 3 default color settings. They are soft, normal and dynamic.
I couldn't tell the difference between them without the glasses. But with the glasses, things that look black on the soft setting are more of dark blue, things that are grey come across as greens and browns become reds. Again this is after using the glasses and going through the settings on my TV.
By the same token, I grew up wondering why people called native americans "redskins" and people from asia are described as yellow. When I look at native americans they are brown and when I look at asians they look white if anything, maybe some have a bit of tan, but that's it. I've never seen a red or yellow person.
What I am describing are emissive lights instead of reflective, I wonder what would happen if they repeated the experience with emissive lights instead of reflected light.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday October 29 2018, @09:55PM (1 child)
What's your experience with the colors of reflected light?
E.g. color-print a sheet of paper with the combination of emitted colours you know cause troubles that are aleviated by the glasses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:34PM
That's the thing. None of those look any different.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 30 2018, @01:46AM (5 children)
You wondered about Redskins the same way I did. I saw the team logo, the red Indian, and thought that was the color of their skins. Pretty cool too. That, and in my upbringing I saw a lot of Looney Toons, and they depicted some Native Americans as deeply brown bordering on red too. No big deal to me, and I never felt it was disparaging. For all I knew that was the actual color of their skin.
As an adult though, I learned the truth. It's really, really, really, fucking ugly too. It's basically related to Native Americans literally being skinned alive, or skinned after death, and then having their skin turned into leather in many cases. The reason why was simple proof that you had killed a Native American. Not too much differently than proving you had participated in other population control efforts, but on animals like wolves and coyotes.
The "red skins" were a nickname for this proof. The red was blood. If you want to be really disappointed in humanity, and Americans of that time, search for leather products made from Native Americans. They made all kinds of leather products, and some cowboys rode on saddles made out of it. Of course, you can contrast that with Native Americans practice of scalping.
Nice to know, huh? This planet and the fucking mean apes on it.....
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by xhedit on Tuesday October 30 2018, @07:30AM (2 children)
Uh, tanned native americans actually do have red skin undertones. My father is 1/4 native and when he worked in the sun all summer you could absolutely see it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @03:54PM
I'm 100% European descent for at least 10 generations. Most likely 20+. In the summer, my skin as red skin undertones, you could absolutely see it.
Just because you have slightly tanned skin, doesn't make you "red". Otherwise lots of people in Asia are also "redskins"
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 30 2018, @08:58PM
Interesting. The etymology of the word though is unfortunately accurate, although disputed by some.
While researching it myself I did find an image of that newspaper article referenced, and it does indeed say red-skin with the hyphen.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2018, @03:40PM (1 child)
Weird, I wonder why the word "leather" doesn't appear anywhere on this Wikipedia article all about the term "Redskin" and its origins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redskin_(slang) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 30 2018, @09:03PM
It's under dispute. However, if you do research it, those newspapers from the time use the term red-skin with a hyphen, and are very unambiguously clear that it refers to rewards for dead Native Americans. Whether or not that has anything to with the origins of the team mascot is certainly up for argument. I doubt it was ever intended to be racist. Nonetheless, the saying "Redskin", is strongly associated with that dark history. Whether or not we've apparently forgotten it.
As for the leather, that would require deeper research than Wikipedia. I've seen references to it in older literature and copies of newspapers from that era.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 30 2018, @02:25AM
Various glasses have been around for just about forever. Have you ever tried "shooting glasses"? They usually look yellow, or yellowish. They claim to make targets easier to see, blah blah blah. And, they DO have an effect on your vision. Yes, things really do look different through the shooting glasses. And, that effect lasts for maybe half an hour. By then, your brain has filtered out that funky yellow effect, and is seeing what it has always seen.
Color vision has been understood reasonably well since before any of us were born. Rods and cones in the eyeballs are either reduced in number, or defective. No glasses are going to repair that problem. Glasses are great at re-focusing your view if your cornea is shaped abnormally, or the eyeball itself is shaped abnormally. But, replacing rods or cones? No way.
These color vision glasses are relying an a psychological trick, which makes you trick yourself into a different perception.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 30 2018, @11:44AM
My color blind dad bought a car when I was a baby. My mom was horrified when he brought it home because it was a hideous color. Dad thought it was gray.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29 2018, @10:48PM
Scratch another victory for the social media juggernaut...
(Score: 1) by xhedit on Tuesday October 30 2018, @07:34AM
I was at a hamfest this summer and some old professors were raving about these enchroma glasses and had a few pairs and were letting people try them. I'm not colorblind, but no other glasses have ever made colors pop the way these glasses did, and I've used all sorts of crazy sunglasses with different filters.