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Paper On Color Blindness

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Approximately thirty-two million Americans suffer from some degree of color blindness. For these people, simple tasks may become complicated; such as matching an outfit or telling the difference of the signals at a traffic light. Many people do not even know that they have some kind of color blindness. The technical term is "color-vision deficiency" because "colorblindness" is usually confused with seeing the world in black and white. However, there are various forms of color vision deficiency that keep people from seeing all of the colors that normal eyes may see. In an article titled "Probing Question: What is colorblindness?" on the Penn State website, psychology professor Rick Gilmore explains how and why certain individuals are kept from seeing the world in full color. He says that there are three types of cones in the retina that give us the ability to see color. Each cone is sensitive to a specific light; red, green, and blue. When one or more of the cones is not there or has received some sort of damage, some form of color vision deficiency will …show more content…

In an article called "Color Blindness", it says that at the University of Washington and University of Florida, a type of treatment called "gene therapy" has cured color blindness in monkeys. Although this worked on the subjects, this therapy is not yet considered safe for humans. There are some ways to help people who suffer from color vision deficiency until a cure is perfected. Special lenses used to improve color perception are available to the people who could benefit from them in certain parts of the United States and other countries. These contact lenses and glasses can be very expensive but very effective. There are online tools that can identify colors by name to better help the color blind understand what everyone else sees. Along with the lenses and websites are medications that better the pathway that order how the cones in the retina

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