Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: cheryl j on 07/02/2013 22:49:16
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I tried searching it, but I'm looking for an old post where someone answered the question "is what one person calls yellow the same sensory experience as what another person calls yellow?" It was a very good explanation, and I've never read it any where else. Thanks.
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Do we all see colours as the same? Sun, 13th Sep 2009
Kat - "I think we had someone on a while ago who was talking about the science of vision and basically the red I see is not the same as the red you see. It’s because the frequency maybe the same but it really depends how the brain interprets it."
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/questions/question/2404/
I suspect it's the "someone" they "had on a while ago" you are looking for.
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We now know that some people see colours differently, because we have found some human tetrachromats.
http://www.radiolab.org/2012/may/21/perfect-yellow/
also http://www.radiolab.org/2012/may/21/
(Originally posted in http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=46714.0)
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Thanks, but that's not it. Maybe the person who wrote it will notice this.
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Here are a few more links:
What colour is that really? (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=23763.0)
Do we all see colours the same way? (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=22633.0)
Do we all see the same colours ? (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=689)
Is what I call "blue" the same thing as the colour that you call "blue"? (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=6161.0)
colour...how do we see it? (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=3538.0)
What Is The Visual Difference Between The Electromagnetic Spectrum? (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=44593)
Are there colors we aren’t seeing? (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=44898.0)
Some also have embedded links.
Psychologically speaking, one may not always be certain whether what one person experiences as yellow is the same as what another experiences as yellow. I believe this may have been even considered by Plato and Aristotle, although I can't remember the exact story.
As mentioned, there are people who are monochromats, dichromats, trichromats, or perhaps even tetrachromats. So, someone who is missing one or more types of cones may still perceive yellow, but could truly perceive it differently than other people.
People also have color preferences. So one person might say Red is their favorite color, and another may prefer Purple or Pink. People may well have different experiences when seeing a color based on color preferences, or even color associations.
Another question might be "what is yellow"? Light with a wavelength around 580 nanometers will give a person yellow. However, as mentioned, most people have 3 cones. Anything that would activate the 3 cones in the same manner would be indistinguishable from true yellow.
In fact, consider your basic RGB computer monitor. RGB? Red, Green, Blue. Where is the YELLOW? The concept dates back at least to the French impressionists (at least) who realized that mixing lights and mixing paints was different. And, they could create their color palate by painting with small dots of their selected primary colors. Who would have predicted that such a concept would be vital for computers a century later.