Color Filters a Performance Enhancer for a Dyslexic Mind

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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181018125148.htm

Dyslexia, a neurobiological learning disability understood to affect the brain's ability to read and comprehend language predominantly, continues to spark the interest of researchers a crossed the globe. Dr. Milena Razuk, a psychological researcher at Cruzeiro, do Sul University in Brazil shares this interest in dyslexia and its effects on the reading processes while researching at Paris Diderot University in Paris.  Dr. Razuk’s study examined the effects of colored filters with a dyslexic child's reading speed. Dr. Razuk experiment involved 36 participants between the ages of 9 and 10. Half of the participants were diagnosed with dyslexia before the experiment, and the other half were not dyslexic. Participants were asked to read three short passages on a computer monitor, each with a color filter of green, yellow, or no filter. As the participants read each passage, their reading speed was measured through an eye-tracking device, monitoring the fixation time on each word. The experiment revealed color filters not to affect undiagnosed dyslexic participants, while the dyslexic participants when presented with a green filter were found to read significantly faster than a yellow filter or no filter. According to Dr. Razuk, the use of an fMRI machine and the duplication of the experiment will reveal brain functionalities in future research. 
            Based on the lectures in Physiological Psychology class, specifically the sections on Language and Vision, the results of this experiment can be understood. The lecture on Language presented the Wernicke-Geschwind Model of Language, which expresses how the human brain processes auditory and visual language. According to this model visual language travels to the angular gyrus, after entering the primary visual cortex, connecting visual language with auditory language. Dyslexia, recognized as the impairment of written language or possibly visual language, is conceptualized to be a procedural issue in the angular gyrus. However, the results of this study also relate to the lecture on vision. The color green under color theory is one of the three primary colors and in the human eye is a receptive field of photoreceptors comprised of 1/3 green-sensitive cones. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that implementation of a green color filter on visual information could enhance the processing speed of a dyslexic brain by allowing the brain to bypass the stage of breaking down color. Further research using red and blue filters could strength this connection between vision and language.    

Comments

  1. Haley MoreauApril 20, 2019 at 11:49 AM

    This was an interesting article to read as I have a family member who is dyslexic. In the color lecture we had in class, these colors, the green and yellow colors usually come from various wavelengths, The medium wavelength light excites the G color cone and inhibited the R-G cell which makes the green color show up. The photopigment in Red/Green receptor happens when the Green light regenerates when the red light is broken down. Knowing most words are printed on white or neutral color paper, it is interesting to hear how a green filter over the words will cause dyslexic people to read faster.

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  2. Alexis ScudderApril 20, 2019 at 6:07 PM

    This concept that color is somehow related to efficiency of reading with dyslexia is really interesting and something I have never thought about before. Since dyslexia is directly related to seeing how words are formed, I always just assumed it had to do with the letters rather than the actual look of the words. While the researchers here filtered the whole page with a certain color, I wonder if simply making the words a different color would also change the reading efficiency of people with dyslexia. One development that ophthalmologists and scientists have discovered is that color lenses may be incredibly helpful for those with dyslexia. Instead of creating different colored paper or overlays, the glasses would simply tint everything to the desired color. However, this could be difficult for certain people. It may be worth it to consider that since the most efficient color of reading for those with dyslexia, I wonder if this would be the same for individuals who are colorblind. As we learned in class, those who are partially colorblind have a hard time seeing red and green compared to other colors. It would be interesting to see if these individuals who are both dyslexic and partially colorblind respond to a different color in a better way.

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  3. Lauren BaileyApril 22, 2019 at 12:07 AM

    I really liked reading about your post about dyslexia. It is a very common learning disorder and I feel many people can relate in some way to the topic. In several of my educational classes that dyslexia is one of the most wrongly diagnosed learning disorders. The article reflects how learning more about the field of dyslexia can contribute to a better diagnoses in the future. Recent studies have also found that dyslexia can be detected through brain scans as well. I feel like if science keeps progressing in this direction, testing for learning disorders will continue to develop positively over time. Teachers of younger children, especially, need to be well versed in the diagnoses of learning disorders and the more techniques for testing that are available the better the diagnoses.

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