You have blues eyes, so that must mean you can't see squat!

Well, in my case, that happens to be true. However, the truth is that it is merely coincidence. Over dinner the other night somebody was telling me that people with light color eyes have poorer vision than people with brown eyes. Right away my little mental alarm went off. By the end of the discussion, I was being teased about how I would look it up. I wonder if my friends could just be setting me up. Regardless, I was compelled to find out for myself.

Since the color pigmentation lies in the iris and vision depends upon many things like the lens, retina, and the shape of the eye (astigmatism), it seems that color would have no affect on vision. However, eye color may affect vision in high glare situations, but doesn't actually mean your eye sight is worse. It seems as if my friend only got part of the story. Read the following from

http://eccentricscientist.wordpress.com/2007/03/02/do-brown-eyes-see-better-than-blue/


"But does your eye color influence how you see?

It turns out that it does. The darker the eyes, the more light is absorbed as light waves pass through the eye, and the less light is available to reflect within the eye. Light reflection (scatter) within the eye can cause susceptibility to glare (e.g. sun or headlights) and to poor contrast discernment. Thus it seems that people with darker eyes may have better vision in high-glare situations – perhaps this makes them better night drivers, for example.

Eye color may also affect your color vision. Here it seems that lighter eyes may provide some advantages.

So, if hind sight is 20-20 (no pun intended :)), then the moral of the story is to gather all of the information.

References
Coppens JE, Franssen L, van den Berg TJ (2006) Wavelength dependence of intraocular straylight Exp. Eye Res. 82(4):688-92

Coren S, Porac C (1978) Iris pigmentation and visual-geometric illusions Perception 7(4):473-7.

Dain SJ, Cassimaty VT, Psarakis DT (2004) Differences in FM100-Hue test performance related to iris colour may be due to pupil size as well as presumed amounts of macular pigmentation Clin. Exp. Optom. 87(4-5):322-5.

IJspeert JK, de Waard PW, van den Berg TJ, de Jong PT (1990) The intraocular straylight function in 129 healthy volunteers; dependence on angle, age and pigmentation Vision Res. 30(5):699-707."