Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 23, 2026

Driving Simulation in the Clinic: Testing Visual Exploratory Behavior in Daily Life Activities in Patients with Visual Field Defects
Published on: September 18, 2012
Colour blindness in everyday life and car driving
Antonio Tagarelli1, Anna Piro, Giuseppe Tagarelli
1Institute of Neurological Science, Mangone, Cosenza, Italy. a.tagarelli@isn.cnr.it
Purpose:
The aim of the present work was to ascertain, through the administration of a psychosocial questionnaire, the difficulties that subjects with defective colour vision experience in carrying out everyday tasks and work, including driving a car with a driver's licence held for no more than 3 years.
Methods:
Subjects with defective colour vision (n = 151) and subjects with normal vision (n = 302) completed a psychosocial questionnaire regarding the difficulties associated with congenital colour vision deficiency in daily life, work and driving a car. Subjects were diagnosed as colour-blind using the Ishihara test.
Results:
Statistically significant differences between the two samples were found for daily life activities. Subjects with defective colour vision preferred daytime driving. At night, subjects with defective colour vision had difficulty identifying reflectors on the road and the rear signal lights of cars ahead of them.
Conclusion:
Colour-blind Calabrian subjects admitted to experiencing colour-related difficulties with a wide range of occupational tasks and leisure pursuits. In particular, colour-blind Calabrian subjects preferred daytime driving, and fewer drove regularly, compared to orthochromatics, who were indifferent to night or daytime driving.
Related Concept Videos
Photoreceptors and Visual Pathways
Color Vision
Anatomy of the Eyeball
Perceptual Constancy
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...
Focusing of Light in the Eye
Vision

