How Do Humans Perceive Colors?

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The discussion centers on the perception of color, highlighting a video from the Technology Connections channel that explores this topic through engaging visual effects. Key points include the distinction between dichromatic red-green light and monochromatic yellow light, challenging the assumption that all colors can be created from the three primary colors. It emphasizes that dichromatic red-blue light is not perceived as a blend of red and blue, which would typically suggest a green hue, but rather as a unique color due to the lack of activation of green photoreceptors. The conversation also notes that humans cannot differentiate between blue and green light effectively, as there are no photoreceptors for wavelengths between these colors. Overall, the video provides valuable insights into how human vision interprets color.
DrClaude
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TL;DR
Very good video on how humans perceive colors.
There are been many threads at PF on the perception of color. I would like to share a good video on the subject, which contains many interesting visual effects.



This is from the Technology Connections channel, which has many videos of interest to our community. I encourage you to browse around.
 
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Fascinating stuff.

In particular, I was impressed with the difference between dichromatic red-green light and monochromatic yellow light. I've always supposed that any given colour in the spectrum can be generated by a combination of the three primaries, but this video shows that it is not so.

More: one must wonder why dichromatic red-blue light is not interpreted as simply the middle point of red and blue (which would be somewhere in the green). It works elsewhere: the combination blue and green is perceived as a blue-green.

I guess that's not always true: red and green is not interpreted as a red-green - it is interpreted as yellow.
 
DaveC426913 said:
More: one must wonder why dichromatic red-blue light is not interpreted as simply the middle point of red and blue (which would be somewhere in the green). It works elsewhere: the combination blue and green is perceived as a blue-green.

Remember than human eyes contain three different types of photoreceptors that can detect either red, green or blue light. Dichromatic red-blue light is characterized not only by the activation of the red and blue photoreceptors, but also the absence of activation of green photoreceptors. Because red-blue light does not activate the green photoreceptors, the brain will interpret it as distinct from green.

In contrast, humans have no photoreceptors detecting wavelengths between blue and green, so we cannot easily distinguish between a combination of blue light + green light or blue-green light.
 
DrClaude said:
Summary: Very good video on how humans perceive colors.

There are been many threads at PF on the perception of color. I would like to share a good video on the subject, which contains many interesting visual effects.



This is from the Technology Connections channel, which has many videos of interest to our community. I encourage you to browse around.

This is great thanks!
 

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