Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27034769›Full record

ArticleJournal of biomedical semantics2016

Representing vision and blindness.

Patrick L Ray, Alexander P Cox, Mark Jensen, Travis Allen, William Duncan, Alexander D Diehl

Abstract read
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Article in Journal of biomedical semantics, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

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0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Patrick L RayDepartment of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA.
Alexander P CoxDepartment of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA.
Mark JensenDepartment of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA.
Travis AllenDepartment of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA.
William DuncanNew York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA.
Alexander D DiehlNew York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA ; Department of Neurology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThere have been relatively few attempts to represent vision or blindness ontologically. This is unsurprising as the related phenomena of sight and blindness are difficult to represent ontologically for a variety of reasons. Blindness has escaped ontological capture at least in part because: blindness or the employment of the term 'blindness' seems to vary from context to context, blindness can present in a myriad of types and degrees, and there is no precedent for representing complex phenomena such as blindness.

methodsWe explore current attempts to represent vision or blindness, and show how these attempts fail at representing subtypes of blindness (viz., color blindness, flash blindness, and inattentional blindness). We examine the results found through a review of current attempts and identify where they have failed.

resultsBy analyzing our test cases of different types of blindness along with the strengths and weaknesses of previous attempts, we have identified the general features of blindness and vision. We propose an ontological solution to represent vision and blindness, which capitalizes on resources afforded to one who utilizes the Basic Formal Ontology as an upper-level ontology.

conclusionsThe solution we propose here involves specifying the trigger conditions of a disposition as well as the processes that realize that disposition. Once these are specified we can characterize vision as a function that is realized by certain (in this case) biological processes under a range of triggering conditions. When the range of conditions under which the processes can be realized are reduced beyond a certain threshold, we are able to say that blindness is present. We characterize vision as a function that is realized as a seeing process and blindness as a reduction in the conditions under which the sight function is realized. This solution is desirable because it leverages current features of a major upper-level ontology, accurately captures the phenomenon of blindness, and can be implemented in many domain-specific ontologies.

Indexed as

Biological OntologiesBlindnessVision, OcularAnimalsColor Vision DefectsHumans

Identifiers

PMID27034769
PMCPMC4815270

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.