FAA Office of Aerospace Medicine
Civil Aerospace Medical Institute
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Report No: DOT/FAA/AM-92/6

Title and Subtitle: Effects of Color Vision Deficiency on Detection of Color-Highlighted Targets in a Simulated Air Traffic Control Display

Report Date: January 1992

Authors: Mertens, H.W., Thackray, R.I., & Touchstone, M.

Abstract: The present study sought to evaluate the effects of color vision deficiency on the gain in conspicuity that is realized when color-highlighting is added as a redundant cue to indicate the presence of unexpected, nontracked aircraft intruding in controlled airspace. Sixteen subjects with severe color vision deficiency of both protan and deutan types and eight subjects with normal color vision performed a simulated high-workload air traffic control task over a l-hour period. Displayed information was normally green. In addition to the primary task, subjects also monitored for occasional intrusions by light aircraft identifiable on the basis of triangular shape alone or with the color red added as a redundant cue. The luminance of the red color was also 30% higher. Detection of red targets was slightly slower than detection of green targets in protans.

In contrast, detection was faster with red targets for both normals and deutan subjects. Impairment in performance of the severe protans with red highlighting was attributed to their well known reduced sensitivity to red light. Although severe deutans have reduced color discrimination, they do not usually have reduced sensitivity and their performance was probably enhanced by the greater brightness of red targets. These results demonstrate that the approach of using color always as a redundant cue to ensure performance of color deficients is valuable, but the potential for adverse interaction of color coding with color deficiency must always be considered.

Key Words: Color Vision Deficiency, Color Coding, ATC Displays

No. of Pages: 11