Do You See RED The Same Way I Do?

Is the RED I see the same as the RED you see?

The question appears perplexing at first. Color is as much a component of the visual experience as gravity is. So, how could somebody have a different perception of color than you?

You can avoid the obviously ridiculous inquiry by pointing to several items and asking, "What color is that?" ” The first agreement appears to be the final word on the matter. However, you may find that there is a lot of variation. Some call it a green rug, while others call it a blue rug. A snapshot of a dress described as blue and black by some and white and gold by others.

You've been confronted with a dreadful possibility. Even if we agree on the label, it's possible that your perception of red differs from mine, and – gasp – that it corresponds to my perception of green. We'd have no way of knowing otherwise. Neuroscientists have taken on this age-old problem and are beginning to answer some of these concerns. One thing that is becoming obvious is why individual color variances are so perplexing in the first place.

Colors Add Meaning To What You See

Scientists frequently use cold, analytic language to describe why people have a color vision: color is for object recognition. And while this is accurate, it isn't the complete story. Object color statistics aren't chosen at random. The hue of the pieces of scenes that individuals choose to label ("ball," "apple," "tiger") is not random: Warm colors (oranges, yellows, and reds) are more common than cool colors  (blues, greens). This is true even for man-made items that could be any color.

These findings imply that color can be used by the brain to aid in object recognition, which could explain universal color naming patterns across languages. However, detecting things is not the only, or even the most important, the function of color vision. Neuroscientists Maryam Hasantash and Rosa Lafer-Sousa offered participants real-world stimuli illuminated by low-pressure sodium lights — the energy-efficient yellow lighting you've probably seen in a parking garage – in a recent study.

Even in the eerie yellow light, the volunteers were able to recognize objects like strawberries and oranges, showing that color isn't necessary for object recognition. However, the fruit appeared to be unappetizing. The yellow light interferes with the retina's ability to properly encode color. The researchers reasoned that if they temporarily disabled this capacity in their participants, the impairment would indicate how color information is normally used.

Faces were also recognized by volunteers, but they appeared to be sick and green. Researchers believe this is due to the fact that your assumptions of regular facial coloring have been shattered. The emergence of green is an error indicator, indicating that something is amiss. This is an example of how your perception can be influenced by your knowledge. What you know, or think you know, can have an impact on what you see.

This study supports the assumption that color isn't as important for determining what something is as it is for determining its likely meaning. Color does not indicate the type of fruit, but rather whether or not a piece of fruit is likely to be edible. As any parent knows, color is actually a critical marker for identifying emotions like rage and humiliation, as well as sickness. It's possible that color's significance in conveying meaning, particularly in social interactions, is what makes a variation in color sensations between people so perplexing.

Colors That are Objective and Quantifiable

Another factor that contributes to color sensation variety is that humans can't simply measure colors. We can get around the problem of subjectivity by having an objective metric of experience. We can use a ruler to measure measurements with shape, for example. Disagreements concerning apparent size can be resolved in a nonjudgmental manner.

We can measure the proportions of different wavelengths across the rainbow using color. Even though they provide the physical basis for color, these "spectral power distributions" do not tell us the color by themselves. As #thedress demonstrated, a given distribution can appear in several hues depending on context and assumptions about materials and lighting.

Color could be a "psychobiological" feature that arises from the brain's light reaction. If that's the case, may an objective basis for color be discovered in the human brain's response rather than the physics of the world? Your brain uses a complex network of circuits in the cerebral cortex to interpret visual inputs, taking into account context and your expectations, in order to compute color. Is it possible to use brain activity to determine the hue of a stimulus?

Your Brain reacts to Red in the same way mine does

Magnetoencephalography, or MEG for short, was utilized by our team to track the tiny magnetic fields formed when nerve cells in the brain fire to communicate. Using machine learning, we were able to classify participants' responses to various hues and subsequently decipher the colors they observed from their brain activity. Certainly, we can measure what happens in the brain to determine color. Our findings reveal that each color corresponds to a particular pattern of brain activity.

Is it true, however, that people's brain reaction patterns are similar? This is a difficult subject to answer since it necessitates a method of completely matching the anatomy of one brain to that of another, which is extremely difficult. For the time being, we can get around the technological issue by asking a similar question. Is my relationship with red and orange similar to your relationship with red and orange?

The MEG experiment showed that two colors that are perceptually more similar, as assessed by how people label the colors, give rise to more similar patterns of brain activity. So your brain’s response to color will be fairly similar when you look at something light green and something dark green but quite different when looking at something yellow versus something brown.

Furthermore, these similarity correlations are maintained across individuals.

Metaphysical problems like "what is redness?" are unlikely to be answered by physiological data. However, the MEG findings provide some confidence that color is a truth we can all agree on.

Source: The Conversation

Maina Zaina, Writer and a Virtual Assistant at AVCreativity Studio. She enjoys media entertainment and is an avid fan of "K-Wave". She loves her job because she is exposed to different types of entertainment. She also believes in the saying "If you want to be successful, don't seek success - seek competence, empowerment; do nothing short of the best that you can do" -Jaggi Vasudev