COMPUTERIZED COLOR-VISION TESTING

There are many advantages to the computerization of colour vision test s. However, previous computerized colour vision tests have involved eq uipment and methods not commonly used in clinical practice. We created computer emulations of the City University Colour Vision Test (CUT), Ishihara plates and American Optical Hardy-Rand-Rittler (AO-HRR) plate s using a commonly available 24-bit colour Macintosh computer. Our col our monitor was calibrated to standard display white (D65), and colour plates were imaged with a colour scanner. The computerized colour ima ges were compared with the standard test plates in a sample of 21 subj ects with normal colour vision, 10 patients with congenital red-green defect and I patient with an acquired mixed colour defect. The compute r images of the three tests correlated well with their conventional co unterparts on kappa statistic analysis (p < 0.001), for both the colou r normal and colour defective groups. We conclude that our computer em ulations of the CUT, Ishihara and AO-HRR tests screen subjects with no rmal colour vision with high specificity and delineate congenital colo ur defects with a sensitivity comparable to that of their conventional counterparts.