Changes in chromatic discrimination of female fighter pilots during different phases of the menstrual cycle

ZHAO Ruihua; ZHAO Rong; ZHAO Panlin; SUN Jing; TIAN Yan; WEI Jie; LIU Hongjin; GU Guoli

Abstract：Objective To investigate the changes of the chromatic discrimination in female fighter pilots during different phases of the menstrual cycle. Methods Ten female fighter pilots, ten normal women of reproductive age and ten male fighter pilots were recruited to investigate color discrimination. Color vision was tested with the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue arrangement test, and the test of female was administered at 3 time points: the second day of the cycle (menstrual phase), the 10th day of the cycle (ovulation phase), and the twenty-second day of the cycle (luteal phase). The Testing Error Score(TES)was observed. One-way ANOVA analysis and independent-samples t-test were used to analyze the data with SPSS 16.0 software package. Results There were no statistically significant differences in the Testing Error Score(TES) of the same phase of menstrual cycle between female fighter pilots and normal women (P>0.05). Few testing error scores were found at ovulation compared to the menstrual phase or the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle between female fighter pilots and normal women, but it was of no statistically significant differences at any point of the cycle (P>0.05). The TES of female was less than that of male at any point of the cycle. Conclusions Color discrimination was slightly better at ovulation than the other two phases of the menstrual cycle in female fighter pilots. Color discrimination of female pilots was better than that of male pilots.