Evaluating color vision deficiency daltonization methods using a behavioral visual-search method

•A visual-search based method is proposed to evaluate CVD daltonization methods.•Accuracy data is well suited for an appropriate ranking of daltonization methods.•Response time data is not very sensible in detecting differences between the methods.•The results rank the Kotera and the Fidaner daltonization methods highest.•The Huang and the Kuhn methods are ranked lowest.

Daltonization methods are used to automatically improve color images for color-deficient people. A comparison of different daltonization methods, however, is still left undone. We propose a visual-search method to evaluate daltonization methods by assessing behavioral performances of the attentional mechanism through the analysis of accuracy and response time data. Firstly, we show that the visual-search methodology can indeed be used to evaluate daltonization methods. Secondly, we argue that a combination of natural images and Ishihara images is needed to highlight differences between the daltonization methods. Our results indicate that the investigated daltonization methods can be ranked from highest to lowest as following: Firstly, the method proposed by Kotera; secondly, the method proposed by Fidaner et al.; thirdly, the method proposed by Huang et al.; and lastly the method proposed by Kuhn et al.