Study of colour discrimination with comb-filtered spectra

Techniques that involve the use of comb-filtered spectra to study human colour vision have been developed in previous work (Bonnardel, V., Bellemare, H., Mollon, J.D., 1996. Measurements of human sensitivity to comb-filtered spectra, Vision Research 36, 2713-2720; Bonnardel, V., Ruderman D.L., Barlow, H.B., 1997. A fast determination of the Spectral Modulation Sensitivity Function: a comparison between trichromats and deuteranopes. In: C.R. Cavonius (ed.), Color vision deficiencies XIII. Dordrecht: Kluver 415-424). These techniques are applied in the present study to measure colour discrimination among deuteranomalous observers and normal trichromats, with the aim of determining the spectral position of the anomalous cone fundamentals. Results show that comb-filtered spectra are useful in determining the extent to which variability in colour discrimination among anomalous and normal trichromatic colour observers is accounted for by the spectral properties of photoreceptors.