Relating color discrimination to photopigment genes in deutan observers

Abstract

Deutan observers are a heterogeneous group, varying nearly continuously from deuteranomalous trichromats with fine chromatic discrimination in the red/green range to deuteranopes who have none. We sought to relate chromatic discriminative ability among deutans measured psychophysically (phenotypes) to observers' separation between long-wave visual pigments inferred from visual pigment genes (genotypes). If middle-wave pigment genes are assumed not to be expressed in these deutan observers there is a clear relation between phenotype and genotype.