The issue of ‘yellow’ overlays is
associated, I think with the idea that ‘ it makes the text stand out’.
The fovea
really only has red and green sensitive cells in it. The Blue sensitive cells are just not
there. You can argue that a person will
always respond to a small yellow component in a visual scene. ( exploited by
wasps and poisonous ‘beasties’ warning
you ‘ not to touch’! Basically any ‘yellow
(red/green cell stimulating) object on a scene will elicit a saccade to it so that
you can
- · work out where it is.
- · examine it.
- · avoid it.
Car rear number plates are black and yellow
for that purpose ..sort of!
Lawyers I believe use yellow paper often..
Possibly for the idea of a ‘quick’ read as well.
John’s ( Stein) work on magnocellular difference (
deficit)shows a connection between blue light stimulating the magnocellular
system through the blue/yellow channel and some other cells in the retina has
supported the ‘idea that yellow or Blue is ‘good’ for dyslexic people and
especially with his glasses from the DRT.
However in discussions with him at the Oxford
Symposium, he was happy to point out that because of the pupil reflex the
glasses also either decreased the red
component or increased it relative to the green which made my ideas and his
much closer than he had realised!
The ‘’yellow’ idea also can affect the way
that the Intuitive colorimeter has been used. When I was working in collaboration
with the IOO and collaborating with Cerium Visual technologies around 12 years
ago, we used to send students off to a particular Hospital optometry department
where they were using the Intuitive colorimeter, when following the protocols
in force, it had become clear that there was a ‘definite benefit’ for the
student.
Ok the rule was that ‘ the glasses colour
would not be the same as the overlay that the student had chosen by the forced choice system
protocols’ of the Intuitive Overlays from the IOO.
BUT at the time we were the only people actually
measuring the benefit of interventions. I
always try to ensure proper audit. The students came back with the coloured glasses
and we compared their performance with them compared with the overlays and the
coloured computer screen.
This particular leading hospital suddenly
started to send everyone back with yellow glasses. The students got very little
benefit from them.
I followed up with conversation with the
quality control people at Cerium, where the glasses were being made.
No one there had noticed any change, there
was no auditing system in place. When I checked with the hospital, it turned
out that the person trained to use the Intuitive Colorimeter had moved on and a
new person was now in charge of it. They had never been on the course with
Cerium and thought that ‘Yellow was good for dyslexics’ and had effectively
been guiding the students!
There is a tendency to use ‘cream’ or buff
as well but this is likely to be just
about reducing the luminance down to around 80% which is you look at the data
we have collected appears to be the modal luminance for the thousands of
dyslexic students my colleagues have worked with.
There is no data supports the ‘colour’
cream as being better than any other ’pastel shade’ it has just become a bit of
an accepted myth propagated by many websites that give it as a default,
One of the problems of these myths is that
because most people/students do not respond positively to them there are loads
of false negatives and as a result nobody actually looks for what might work in
a logical fashion. This leaves many ‘coping’ with avoidable visual problems,
small visual attention spans and reinforces the idea ‘ that you have to live
with your problems’
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