Why the colours of modern displays can look so different to different observers

Normal human colour vision depends on photon absorption in three types of cone photoreceptors (sensors) with different spectral sensitivities. Colour vision is therefore trichromatic. Triplets of primary lights can be mixed to reproduce colours that fall inside the colour space or gamut delimited by each triplet. Older displays with broadband primaries produce a small colour gamut and a relatively limited range of colours, but the colours generally appear similar to different observers. Modern displays with narrowband primaries produce a larger gamut and a wider range of colours, but the colours often appear different to different observers. These mismatches (or observer metamerism failures) stem from individual differences in colour vision caused by physiological and genetic variability in the population. Here we use our model of those differences to simulate their effects on the colours produced by a large range of display types. Substantial colour differences are predicted for narrowband displays, especially for observers with forms of red-green colour vision deficiency and those with aged lenses. Noticeable differences are also predicted for some observers whose colour vision deviates from the mean observer but would otherwise be classified as normal, including some who might be engaged in colour-critical industries.