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The frequency of colour vision defective students in a school of art and the influence of their defects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2008

R. W. Pickford
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, W.2

Summary

1. It has not been possible to show that the frequency of red/green defectives is different in a school of art from that in the population as a whole, or that the distribution of frequencies of sub-types is different, either for men or women.

2. One colour defective out of seven did not know of the defect until tested in this research, four were tested by a doctor at school before coming to the college of art and two were tested informally by friends after coming to the college. In every case where it was used by non-psychologists the Ishihara Test seems to have given unsatisfactory information, and in this research it was very unsatisfactory except for crude screening.

3. All the subjects showed surprising powers of adaptation, partly as a result of realizing their difficulties consciously and learning to avoid colours which would give rise to difficulty.

4. It is clear that with better testing, which reveals the degree and type of defect accurately, and a more understanding approach on the part of a trained psychologist who realizes how to explain a person's colour difficulties and to give him insight into the nature of his problems, much help could be given. It should not be necessary and is not desirable that all red/green defectives should be excluded from schools of art, because some of them may have quite considerable artistic ability.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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