Fundamentals of colour awareness: a literature review

Abstract

A description of some of the basic or funda-mental aspects of the colour sensory mechanism will be provided here, based on modern ideas and literature, with reference specifically to the likely origins and evolution of colour vision. The mo-lecular basis for colour awareness and the human colour pathway will also be considered in some detail. This paper intends to provide the theoreti-cal and philosophical basis for further papers that will introduce a modern and original computer- based method for more comprehensive colour vision assessment. This new approach, to be fully described in later manuscripts, may contrib-ute towards improvements in understanding and knowledge of human colour perception and its measurement, still perhaps a relatively under-ex-plored or neglected field of study within optom-etry and ophthalmology.

Keywords

• Colour perception, colour vision, mechanisms of colour vision, colour deficiency, colour vision tests