The Facts About Eye Color and Your Vision (2024)

FAQs

The Facts About Eye Color and Your Vision? ›

True or False: Eye Color Affects Your Vision. Eye color doesn't significantly affect the sharpness of your vision, but it can affect visual comfort in certain situations. It all comes down to the density of the pigment melanin within your iris, which determines what colors of light are absorbed or reflected.

The Claim: Eye Color Can Have an Effect on Vision

But whether that extends to vision is not clear. If there are any differences, they seem to be subtle. There is little or no evidence that darker eye color means greater visual acuity, but one theory holds that it does produce better reaction times.

While lighter-colored eyes may be more sensitive to sunlight, they are not necessarily more sensitive to vision. In fact, blue eyes have better visual acuity than brown eyes. This means that blue-eyed people can see small details more clearly.

FACT: All human eyes are actually brown

Melanin is naturally dark brown and is the same pigment that determines our skin and hair colour. The more melanin in the iris, the darker the eye colour. Eye colour also depends on how light is scattered as it passes through the eye.

People with lighter-colored eyes are more likely to have nearsightedness (or myopia) than those with darker-colored eyes. Nearsightedness occurs when the eyeball becomes too long or curved, causing light to focus on a point just before reaching the retina instead of directly on it.

One thing these survey results have in common is that light-colored eyes — green, gray, blue, and hazel — are named as the most attractive eye colors in the world.

An Australian study says people with light-colored eyes are twice as likely to get age-related macular degeneration. That's because less UV light is being absorbed by the iris, so more can get through to the retina and cause damage, This disease can cause vision loss.

Brown Eyes Are Associated With Few if Any Health Risks

“In general, everyone should make sure to wear 100 percent UV-blocking sunglasses when outdoors to minimize their chances of developing cataracts and other eye diseases,” Abugo advises.

While the global data on eye colors is limited, red and violet eyes are likely the rarest eye colors since they only affect a small group of people with albinism. But if you exclude eye colors brought on by albinism, then green and gray are likely the rarest.

Your eye color is 100% linked to specific genes. And so are many of the most common eye conditions and eye diseases leading to vision loss. However, for the most part, your eye color doesn't put you at risk for vision conditions (an exception being albinism).

Do purple eyes exist? ›

Red and violet

Although the deep blue eyes of some people such as Elizabeth Taylor can appear purple or violet at certain times, "true" violet-colored eyes occur only due to albinism. Eyes that appear red or violet under certain conditions due to albinism are less than 1 percent of the world's population.

A person's eye color depends on how much of a pigment called melanin is stored in the front layers of the iris, the structure surrounding the pupil. Specialized cells called melanocytes produce the melanin, which is stored in intracellular compartment called melanosomes.

For most people, eye color will not change significantly past infancy. If you notice a change in your eye color, set an appointment with an eye doctor to help find the cause.

We tested whether eye color influences perception of trustworthiness. Facial photographs of 40 female and 40 male students were rated for perceived trustworthiness. Eye color had a significant effect, the brown-eyed faces being perceived as more trustworthy than the blue-eyed ones.

Those with lighter eyes have higher skin cancer risk.

Not surprisingly, other research also suggests that folks with light-colored irises (blue or green) have a higher risk of developing eye melanoma than those with darker orbs.

Yellow light has been shown to be effective in protecting the retinas of patients with overexposure to blue light because it produces the best contrast. Sunglasses with yellow lenses are quite effective not only at filtering ultraviolet rays but also blue light.

Lighter-colored eyes have less pigment to protect against sun damage and UV radiation compared to darker-colored eyes. This means that people with green, hazel, or blue eyes are more sensitive to light and more susceptible to UV damage.

Green, the mixture of blue and yellow, can be seen everywhere and in countless shades. In fact, the human eye sees green better than any color in the spectrum. This, along with many other facts about this earthly color, makes it an essential part of our everyday lives. But why is that?

Since UV light is blocked by the lens inside the eye it is the visible light that can harm the retina. Since it is thought that blue light can damage the retina, ophthalmologists can now offer blue-blocking lens implants when performing cataract surgery.