Computer analysis of Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue test

Color vision abnormalities indicated by the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue Color Vision Tests (FM-100) were analyzed by computer to better characterize and group congenital and acquired color vision disorders and to help establish statistically significant diagnostic criteria. Standard evaluation of the FM-100 is by axis and error score calculations. A method has been established for computer-averaging many tests from patients with the same color abnormalities determined by history, standard FM-100 and Nagel anomaloscope. The computer calculated an average error score and standard deviation for each of the 85 color caps. Every time a new patient was evaluated for color vision abnormality, his score was compared with averaged tests with common diagnoses, by calculating distance scores. The averaged test with the lowest distance score consistently tended to coincide with the diagnosis. An analysis of 130 FM-100 color tests found technician-calculated error scores to be incorrect, although usually minor, in 40% of the tests. The computer-calculated axes agreed well with the technician's estimates. The distance scores predicted the diagnosis accurately 89% of the time. Many errors were due to the small number of protanopes averaged and inability to distinguish trichromats from dichromats.