City Uni tests
City Uni Colour Vision tests write up
I went for the City uni tests at the end of July, here's what you get for your £125 if anyone is interested.
The whole appointment lasts about 90 minutes, I took 6 different tests in total.
1. Ishihara colour vision test (1-25 plates of 38 plate test)
As discussed plenty on this thread previously, first you look at the Ishihara plates. Test is in a darkened room, you sit at the desk and the plates are put on a stand with a light overhead to control the light conditions. The Ishihara plates are the ones where (hopefully!) you can see numbers on them.
2. American Optical Company (HRR) Plates
Similar to Ishihara except you have to identify shapes (circle, cross, triangle etc) and point to the outline of the shape.
3. Colour Assesment and Diagnostic test (CAD)
This is a computer based test, you sit on a chair and look through a chin/forehead rest to keep your head aligned. You look at a computer monitor, which has a square (I'd guess about 10cm sq) of grey and colours. You have a remote with four buttons that correspond to the corners of the square (top left, top right, bottom left, bottom right). Each test is about 1 second, the square you are looking at moves for about 1 second, flashing lots of different shades of grey small squares. Within this you should be able to see a coloured area, moving across one of the diagonal axis. Once the movement stops you have to press the button on the remote for the corner the coloured area stopped in. If you don't know you are told to guess. Its a difficult test (and I was warned this before I started), because it adjusts to your answers as it runs. You go through loads of the 1 second iterations, hundreds. It probably took me 15 mins in total. Further up this thread somewhere there is a link to a simple online version of this test.
4. Farnsworth D15 test
This is a series of 15 coloured counters (like a boardgame) of slightly differing shades, they put one counter in place to start you off and you have to put them in order of colour change, like a "spectrum". Its the only test I passed, with one mistake.
5. Nagel anomaloscope
Apparently this is still the Rolls Royce of tests. You look into a instrument similar to a telescope, and see a circle of colour split into to semi-circular halves. The operator sets the top half to one colour, you have to look into the eyepiece and twist a dial to match the bottom half to the top. Frankly I found it very difficult.
6. Holmes-Wright Lantern (Type A)
This is what I'd really gone for, becuase I understand this is what you get at Gatwick if you fail Ishihara. This test was done in a different room, twice, once with near darkness, and again in as close to pitch black as possible. I found it more difficult in the total darkness.
You sit 6m away from the lantern, which has 2 lights. They are about 2mm in diameter (same size as a standby LED on a TV set), positioned in a vertical line about 3cm apart.
The lights can be three colours, Red, Green, White. Before the test starts the operator shows you all three colours and tells you which is which.
The lights are shown in pairs, and you have to call out in turn what the colour is, top then bottom. Eg Red-Red, Red-White, Red-Green, Green-Green, etc etc. There are about 30-40 pairs I think. You are not allowed to make any mistakes.
Disappointingly but unsurprisingly I failed most of the tests. For the Holmes Wright lantern I can't differentiate between White and Green. I answered White-White when it was White-Green, White-white when it was Green-Green, etc etc. My condition is diagnosed as Protanomaly.
Written report
You receive a written report of the results about 1 week after the appointment. You are also verbally told the results on the day, and of course you can ask questions. I was advised it is highly unlikely I can pass a Class 1 medical, certainly not in the UK.
New PAPI test trials
City Uni are developing a new test based on PAPI lights as mentioned in this thread. I asked about this, was told (and shown the kit - looks similar to lantern) that it is about to be trialled, but it is not CAA approved yet. City Uni are looking for volunteers for the trail, if anyone is interested PM me for the Uni contact name and number.
If anyone wants to know more feel free to PM me.
cheers
Ian