Red-green color blindness provides evolutionary advantages in detecting camouflaged objects
While some empirical evidence shows that red-green color blindness or dichromacy can aid in breaking certain types of color camouflage and texture interference, other studies demonstrate superior predator detection and foraging advantages for trichromacy, leaving the evolutionary benefits contested.
The retrieved papers present a mix of findings. Papers [2], [7], and [9] support the idea that color blindness or dichromacy/anomalous trichromacy can confer specific advantages in detecting camouflaged objects or breaking visual interference. Conversely, papers [8] and [11] show advantages for trichromacy in predator detection and foraging, reflecting the broader evolutionary debate (often discussed in the context of balancing selection maintaining opsin polymorphism). Because there are credible empirical findings on both sides, the verdict is CONTESTED.
K. Choi. Performance Improvement of a Deep Learning-based Object Recognition using Imitated Red-green Color Blindness of Camouflaged Soldier Images. 2020. https://doi.org/10.9766/kimst.2020.23.2.139
Experimental results show that mimicking red-green color blindness helps deep learning models better detect camouflaged soldiers.
Pedro Z de Moraes, Pedro Diniz, Maria Helena C Spyrides, Daniel M A Pessoa. The effect of pelage, background, and distance on predator detection and the evolution of primate color vision.. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23230
A study on primate predator detection found that trichromats present a higher accuracy and lower latency for detecting camouflaged carnivores across various backgrounds.
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M J Morgan, A Adam, J D Mollon. Dichromats detect colour-camouflaged objects that are not detected by trichromats.. 1992. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.1992.0074
Classic empirical findings demonstrate that dichromats outperform trichromats in breaking certain types of color camouflage that interfere with texture segregation.
Ravid Doron, Anna Sterkin, Moshe Fried, Oren Yehezkel, Maria Lev, Michael Belkin, Mordechai Rosner, Arieh S Solomon, Yossi Mandel, Uri Polat. Spatial visual function in anomalous trichromats: Is less more?. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0209662
Research shows that subjects with anomalous trichromacy exhibit superior abilities to detect objects camouflaged in natural grayscale figures.
Amanda D Melin, Kenneth L Chiou, Emily R Walco, Mackenzie L Bergstrom, Shoji Kawamura, Linda M Fedigan. Trichromacy increases fruit intake rates of wild capuchins (Cebus capucinus imitator).. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1705957114
Field studies on wild capuchins indicate that trichromacy provides foraging advantages for conspicuous fruits, contributing to the debate on balancing selection for opsin polymorphism.
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