Quantifying variations in personal color spaces: Are there sex differences in color vision?

Abstract

We report a search for group differences in color experience between male and female subjects, focusing on the relative prominence of the axes of color space. Dissim-ilarity data were collected in the form of triadic (odd-one-out) judgments, made with the caps of the D-15 color deficiency test, with lighting conditions controlled. Multidi-mensional scaling reduced these judgments to a small number of dimensional-weight parameters, describing each sub-ject's sensitivity to color axes, i.e., how much each axis contributes to the inter-color dissimilarities perceived by each subject. Normal trichromatic subjects in two age bands were examined, teenagers and university students, and in both cases males placed significantly less weight on a 'red-green' axis, and more on 'lightness'. We consider the implications and possible explanations.

How to use individual differences to isolate functional organization, biology, and utility of visual functions; with illustrative proposals for stereopsis

“…Such methods have also contributed to our knowledge of the functional organization of color vision (Bimler, Kirkland & Jameson, 2004;Gunther & Dobkins, 2003;Burt, 1949;Jones, 1948) and motion perception (Morrone et al, 1999). In addition, individual differences based studies have yielded insights into the functional organization of color vision (Malkoc et al, 2005;Webster et al, 2000aWebster et al, ,b, 2002Pickford, 1951), stereopsis (van Ee & Richards, 2002;van Ee, 2003;Scharff, 1997;Regan et al, 1986;Richards & Lieberman, 1985;Richards & Regan, 1973), and shape from shading (Adams, 2007) without explicitly using latent variable models.…”

Effect of Gender, Experience, and Value on Color Perception

“…9 This is one of the reasons women are considered more capable of matching shades than men are. 1,10,11 It is known that men and women differ in their capacity to distinguish shades, 7,12,13 and traditionally women have been considered better at selecting shades than men. 11,14 The majority of studies have attached little or no importance to the observer's gender at the time of shade selection, even though this is a variable that can influence the end result of the selection process.…”

“…11,14 The majority of studies have attached little or no importance to the observer's gender at the time of shade selection, even though this is a variable that can influence the end result of the selection process. 8,12,13 Another variable to consider in shade matching is the observer's clinical experience, which can alter the capacity to reproduce the matching process.…”

Discrimination of Attractiveness and Health in Men’s Faces: the Impact of Color Cues and Variation in Relation to Sex and Age of Rater

“…However motivational or preference differences cannot account for the effects due to color or monochrome stimulus presentation. We therefore think it more likely that these effects are due to differences in perceptual acuity associated with gender and age; research suggests that younger people and women have better perceptual acuity than older people and men respectively (Fiorentini et al 1996;Bimler et al 2004), and these differences in perceptual acuity may play an important role in the between-groups differences in quality discrimination observed in the current study.…”