Types of Color Blindness
Many people misconceive what colorblindness actually is, and that there are many types. Many people think color blindness means a complete absence of color. Achromatopsia is the condition where a person sees in complete black and white. This condition is extremely rare and only occurs 1 in every 33,000 people worldwide ("Types of Colour Blindness"). People with achromatopsia are also known to have other more serious conditions such as having a lazy eye, nystagmus, and extremely poor vision. Not many people know about the more common types of color blindness.
There are three main types of color blindness, anomalous trichomacy, dichromacy, and monochromacy ("Types of Colour Blindness"). Anomalous trichomacy is the inability to distinguish between two colors, dichromacy is the inability see one type of color, and monchromacy is the inability to see any color, also known as achromatopsia ("Types of Color Blindness").
Trichomacy is the term used to describe normal vision. It consists of all three cone cells working properly in the eye. These three types of cone cells allow our eyes to see green, red and blue light ("Types of Colour Blindness"). Color blindness affects the cone cells in the retina of our eyes. When something is wrong with these cone cells, it can cause color blindness ("Color Blindness").
There are three main types of color blindness, anomalous trichomacy, dichromacy, and monochromacy ("Types of Colour Blindness"). Anomalous trichomacy is the inability to distinguish between two colors, dichromacy is the inability see one type of color, and monchromacy is the inability to see any color, also known as achromatopsia ("Types of Color Blindness").
Trichomacy is the term used to describe normal vision. It consists of all three cone cells working properly in the eye. These three types of cone cells allow our eyes to see green, red and blue light ("Types of Colour Blindness"). Color blindness affects the cone cells in the retina of our eyes. When something is wrong with these cone cells, it can cause color blindness ("Color Blindness").
For both anomalous trichomacy there are three sub types, there's deuteranomaly, protanomaly, and tritanomaly ("Types of Colour Blindness"). In the case of anomalous trichomacy, one of the cone cells becomes sensitive to certain lights, and people have trouble distinguishing colors because of this. Deutanomaly is the most common form of color blindness, and affects the green cone cells in the eye. This causes people to have trouble telling the difference between reds and greens. Protanomaly affects the red cone cells, and people also have trouble distinguishing reds and greens. People with both deutanomaly and protanomaly are categorized as red-green colorblind, as they have very similar conditions ("Types of Colour Blindness"). Tritanomaly is a very rare condition where the blue cone cells of the eye are affected. People with this type of color blindness have trouble telling the difference between blue and yellow hues ("Types of Colour Blindness").
Secondly, there's dichromacy. This type of color blindness occurs when one of the cone cells within the eye stops functioning entirely, unlike anomalous trichomacy, where the cone cells are only sensitive to certain types of light. The three sub types are protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia. Protanopia occurs when the red cone cells aren't functioning, and deuteranopia occurs when the green cone cells aren't functioning. Since green and red light often overlap on the color spectrum, people with these two types of color blindness tend to see in similar ways ("Types of Colour Blindness"). Finally, there's tritanopia, which is when the blue cone cells do not work properly. This is much rarer than the other two sub types of dichromacy ("Types of Colour Blindness"). Dichromacy is described as a more severe condition when compared to anomalous trichomacy, but it remains that both are forms of color blindness, and both a severe enough disabilities.