Visual search and the conspicuity of coloured targets for colour vision normal and colour vision deficient observers.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Colour is known to facilitate visual search although its role as a determinant of target conspicuity is not so clear. People with abnormal colour vision have problems recognising and differentiating colours but the extent to which they may be at a disadvantage in visual search when redundant colour is a target attribute has not been investigated previously. METHOD: Six colour normal and 29 colour deficient subjects (7 P, 6 D, 7 PA, 9 DA) were instructed to find a diamond-shaped target embedded in a background of 138 differently shaped distracters and to report its position as quickly as possible. The target was redundantly colour-coded red, yellow, green, blue or white and the di..