Representing vision and blindness.

Area of Science:

• Ontology
• Biomedical Informatics
• Vision Science

Background:

• Few attempts have been made to create ontological representations of vision or blindness.
• Existing challenges include the context-dependent nature of 'blindness,' its diverse types and degrees, and the lack of precedent for representing such complex phenomena ontologically.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore and critique current ontological approaches to vision and blindness.
• To propose a novel ontological solution for representing vision and blindness, including subtypes.

Main Methods:

• Reviewed existing attempts to represent vision and blindness ontologically.
• Analyzed the failures of current methods in representing subtypes of blindness (e.g., color blindness, flash blindness, inattentional blindness).
• Utilized the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as an upper-level ontology for the proposed solution.

Main Results:

• Identified general features of vision and blindness through test cases and analysis of prior attempts.
• Developed an ontological framework that specifies trigger conditions and realization processes of a disposition.
• Proposed a method to characterize vision as a biological function and blindness as a reduction in its realizable conditions.

Conclusions:

• The proposed ontological solution defines vision as a function realized by biological processes under specific trigger conditions.
• Blindness is characterized as a reduction in the range of conditions under which the sight function can be realized.
• This approach leverages existing ontological resources, accurately captures blindness, and is adaptable for domain-specific ontologies.