Plasticity in perception: insights from color vision deficiencies

Inherited color vision deficiencies typically result from a loss or alteration of the visual photopigments absorbing light and thus impact the very first step of seeing. There is growing interest in how subsequent steps in the visual pathway might be calibrated to compensate for the altered receptor signals, with the possibility that color coding and color percepts might be less severely impacted than the receptor differences predict. These compensatory adjustments provide important insights into general questions about sensory plasticity and the sensory and cognitive processes underlying how we experience color.