Sahlgren's Saturation Test for acquired dyschromatopsia: increased lightness enhances sensitivity.

Sahlgren's Saturation Test (SST) is a simple sorting test designed for the detection and grading of acquired color vision defects. Like other pigment-based color vision tests, the SST color samples have medium lightness, i.e., they belong to the intermediate part of the gray scale. We tested normal controls and subjects with congenital or acquired dyschromatopsia with five SST versions that differed only in the amount of lightness. The sensitivity of the test increased considerably with increasing lightness. Therefore, the lightness level of SST has now been changed from 30 to 10 Natural Color System units.