The way we perceive colors varies depending on genetic, biological, brain, cultural and environmental factors, according to an English study.
- Individual differences in color vision were first discussed in literature in 1798 by John Dalton.
- He was a dichromat, that is, he lacked one of the three types of cones located in the retina.
Color perception is subjective. Clearly, the way we see and describe hues changes from person to person for multiple reasons. This was revealed by Jenny M. Bosten, a neuroscientist at the University of Sussex in England. To reach this conclusion, she carried out a study published in theAnnual Review of Vision Science. As part of the work, the researcher indicated that the way we perceive colors varies depending on the structure of our eyes, the way our brain processes images, the language we speak or where we live. .
“Biological constraints on how we learn to classify colors”
“There are several sets of data on color classification in different cultures. And there are commonalities. This implies that there could be biological constraints on how one learns to classify colors. But all cultures do not have the same number of categories, so it is also suggested that color categories are cultural and that cultures experience some kind of evolution in terms of colors”, explained Jenny M. Boston to the Scientific American.
Language can make no distinction between colors
According to the author, a language can initially make only two or three distinctions between colors. For example, in Old Welsh, no difference is made between blue and green. They both belong to a category of “crane”. In other languages, a distinction is made between two basic color terms. In Russian, we say “siniy” for dark blue and “goluboy” for lighter blue.
Colors: the brain makes a judgment based on the lighting
The neuroscientist returned to the debate, dating from 2015, around the blue and black or white and gold dress. According to her, the way we see colors depends on the lighting. “People who see it as blue and black see the robe lit with a yellowish light. And people who see it as white and gold see it as dimly lit with a bluish, darker light”she clarified.
Genetic variations impair color vision
Another reason why we perceive colors differently: genetic variations and more precisely cones, namely different photoreceptors located in the retina. “There are three types of cones. We know more about the variation of two of them: those that detect long and medium wavelengths, known as the L and M cone types. Each of them has a photosensitive opsin, that is to say the molecule changing shape when it receives light and determining the sensitivity of the cell to the wavelength”specified Jenny M. Boston.
