Mr. I.

- a painter who became color blind at the age of 65 after suffering a concussion in an
automobile accident.

cerebral achromatopsia - color blindness caused by cortical injury after a lifetime of

experiencing color
- most cases of total color blindness occur at birth because of the genetic absence of one
or more types of cone receptors

color deficiency - partial color blindness

color can be a cue to emotions signaled by facial expressions.

Isaac Newton - studied the properties of light and color for much of his career
- thought that white light was a mixture of differently colored lights and that the prism
separated the white light into its individual components.
- concluded that light in each part of the spectrum is defined by different physical
properties and that these physical differences give rise to our perception of different
colors.

Newton’s prism experiment - Light entered through a hole in the window shade and then
passed through the prism. The colors of the spectrum were then separated by passing them
through holes in a board. Each color of the spectrum then passed through a second prism.
Different colors were bent by different amounts.

colors of the spectrum are associated with different wavelengths of light:

● Violet - 400 to 450 nm
● Blue - 450 to 490
● Green - 500 to 575 nm
● Yellow - 575 to 590 nm
● Orange - 590 to 620 nm
● Red - 620 to 700 nm

Our perception of color depends critically on the wavelengths of light that enter our eyes.

Chromatic colors - such as blue, green, and red, occur when some wavelengths are reflected
more than others

selective reflection - some wavelengths are reflected more than others

Achromatic colors - such as white, gray, and black, occur when light is reflected equally across
the spectrum

reflectance curves - plot the percentage of light reflected from lettuce and tomatoes at each
wavelength in the visible spectrum
The difference between black, gray, and white is related to the overall amount of light reflected
from an object.
● black paper - reflects less than 10 percent of the light that hits it
● white paper - reflects more than 80 percent of the light

Selective transmission - only some wavelengths pass through the object or substance

Transmission curves — plots of the percentage of light transmitted at each wavelength—look

similar to the reflectance curves but with percent transmission plotted on the vertical axis

Predominant Wavelengths Reflected orTransmitted and Perceived Color:

● Short - Blue
● Medium - Green
● Long and medium - Yellow
● Long - Red
● Long, medium, and short - White

Two ways of mixing colors:

● Mixing paints
● Mixing lights

MIXING PAINTS

Both paints still absorb the same wavelengths they absorbed when alone, so the only
wavelengths reflected are those that are reflected by both paints in common.

A blob of blue paint absorbs all of the long-wavelength light, while a blob of yellow paint
absorbs all of the short-wavelength light. Mix them together and the only wavelengths that
survive all this absorption are some of the medium-wavelengths, which are associated with
green.

Subtractive Color Mixing - mixing paints, when blue and yellow blobs subtract all of the
wavelengths except some that are associated with green

The reason that mixing blue and yellow paints results in green is that both paints reflect some
light in the green part of the spectrum.

The overlap between the blue and yellow paint curves coincides with the peak of the
reflectance curve for green paint.

Mixing Blue andYellow Paints (Subtractive Color Mixture):

 ● Blob of blue paint
○ Short wavelength - reflects all
○ Medium wavelength - reflects some
○ Long wavelength - absorbs all

● Blob of yellow paint

○ Short wavelength - absorbs all
○ Medium wavelength - reflects some
○ Long wavelength - reflects some

● Mixture of blue and yellow blobs

○ Short wavelength - absorbs all
○ Medium wavelength - reflects some
○ Long wavelength - absorbs all

MIXING LIGHTS

If a light that appears blue is projected onto a white surface and a light that appears yellow is
projected on top of the light that appears blue, the area where the lights are superimposed is
perceived as white.

Because the two spots of light are projected onto a white surface, which reflects all
wavelengths, all of the wavelengths that hit the surface are reflected into an observer’s eyes.

All of the light that is reflected from the surface by each light when alone is also reflected when
the lights are superimposed. Thus, where the two spots are superimposed, the light from the
blue spot and the light from the yellow spot are both reflected into the observer’s eye. The
added-together light therefore contains short, medium, and long wavelengths, which results in
the perception of white.

additive color mixture - mixing lights, because it involves adding up the wavelengths of each
light in the mixture

connection between wavelength and color:

● Colors of light are associated with wavelengths in the visible spectrum.
● The colors of objects are associated with which wavelengths are reflected (for opaque
objects) or transmitted (for transparent objects).
● The colors that occur when we mix colors are also associated with which wavelengths
are reflected into the eye.
○ Mixing paints causes fewer wavelengths to be reflected (each paint subtracts
wavelengths from the mixture)
 ○ Mixing lights causes more wavelengths to be reflected (each light adds
wavelengths to the mixture)

Mixing Blue andYellow Lights (Additive Color Mixture):

● Spot of blue light
○ Short wavelength - reflected
○ Medium wavelength - no reflection
○ Long wavelength - reflected

● Spot of yellow light

○ Short wavelength - no reflection
○ Medium wavelength - reflected
○ Long wavelength - reflected

● Overlapping blue and yellow spots

○ Short wavelength - no reflection
○ Medium wavelength - reflection
○ Long wavelength - reflected

Visible spectrum - Isaac Newton described this terms of seven colors: red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, indigo, and violet. His use of seven color terms probably had more to do with
mysticism than science, however, as he wanted to harmonize the visible spectrum (seven
colors) with musical scales (seven notes), the passage of time (seven days in a week),
astronomy (there were seven known planets at the time), and religion (seven deadly sins)

Modern vision scientists tend to exclude indigo from the list of spectral colors because
humans actually have a difficult time distinguishing it from blue and violet.

nonspectral colors — colors that do not appear in the spectrum because they are mixtures of
other colors

magenta - a mixture of blue and red

Hues - colors in chromatic colors

two dimensions of color:

● saturation - intensity of color
○ desaturated - a faded or washed-out appearance

● value (lightness) - light-to-dark dimension of color

Color Solid - three-dimensional color space used to illustrate the relationship among hue,
saturation, and value
 - creates a coordinate system in which our perception of any color can be defined by hue,
saturation, and value

Munsell color system - developed by Albert Munsell, depicts the dimensions of hue,
saturation, and value
- Saturation is depicted by placing more satu- rated colors toward the outer edge of the
cylinder and more desaturated colors toward the center. Value is represented by the
cylinder’s height, with lighter colors at the top and darker colors at the bottom.

Isaac Newton - proposed that “rays of light in falling upon the bottom of the eye excite
vibrations in the retina. Which vibrations, being propagated along the fibres of the optick
nerves into the brain, cause the sense of seeing”

Thomas Young - suggested that Newton’s idea of a link between each size of vibration and
each color won’t work, because a particular place on the retina can’t be capable of the large
range of vibrations required.

trichromacy of color vision - states that color vision depends on the activity of three different
receptor mechanisms
- became known as the Young-Helmholtz theory
- Trichromatic Theory

James Clerk Maxwell & Hermann von Helmholtz - provide the needed experimental evidence
for trichromatic theory

color matching - psychophysical procedure whose results support the trichromacy of color
vision
- The experimenter presents a reference color that is created by shining a single
wavelength of light on a “reference field”.The observer then matches the reference
color by mixing different wavelengths of light in a “comparison field”

Key findings from Maxwell’s color-matching experiments:

- any reference color could be matched provided that observers were able to adjust the
proportions of three wavelengths in the comparison field.

According to trichromatic theory, light of a particular wavelength stimulates each receptor

mechanism to different degrees, and the pattern of activity in the three mechanisms results in
the perception of a color

microspectrophotometry - made it possible to direct a narrow beam of light into a single cone
receptor
- technique used that made the discovery of three types of cones in the human retina
- By presenting light at wavelengths across the spectrum, it was determined that there
were three types of cones
 ● short-wavelength pigment (S) - absorbed maximally at 419-nm
● middle-wavelength pigment (M) - at 531-nm
● long-wavelength pigment (L) - at 558-nm

adaptive optical imaging - made it possible to look into a person’s eye and take pictures that
showed how the cones are arranged on the surface of the retina.
- creates a sharp image by first measuring how the optical system of the eye distorts the
image reaching the retina, and then taking a picture through a deformable mirror that
cancels the distortion created by the eye

Cone mosaic - result that shows foveal cones

Aberrations - imperfections in the eye’s cornea and lens that distort the light on its way to the
retina

Metamerism - two physically different stimuli are perceptually identical

- even though the lights in these two fields are physically different, the two lights result in
identical physiological responses so they are identical as far as the brain is concerned
and they are therefore perceived as being the same

Metamers - two identical fields in a color-matching experiment

- The reason metamers look alike is that they both result in the same pattern of response
in the three cone receptors

Monochromatism - a rare form of color blindness that is usually hereditary and occurs in only
about 10 people out of 1 million

Monochromats - usually have no functioning cones, so their vision is created only by the rods
- their vision has the characteristics of rod vision in both dim and bright lights so they see
only in shades of lightness (white, gray, and black), and can be color blind
- perceive all wavelengths as shades of gray, they can match any wavelength by picking
another wavelength and adjusting its intensity
- needs only one wavelength to match any wavelength in the spectrum

Isomerization - process wherein light is absorbed by the retinal part of the visual pigment
molecule, the retina changes shape

Photons - small packets of energy that specify light

- one photon being the smallest possible packet of light energy

principle of univariance - states that once a photon of light is absorbed by a visual pigment
molecule, the identity of the light’s wavelength is lost
- difference in the wavelengths of light doesn’t matter
Univariance - the receptor does not know the wavelength of light it has absorbed, only the
total amount it has absorbed.

A person with only one visual pigment can match any wavelength in the spectrum by adjusting
the intensity of any other wavelength and sees all of the wavelengths as shades of gray.
Adjusting the intensity appropriately can make the 480-nm and 600-nm lights (or any other
wavelengths) look identical.

Dichromats - people with just two types of cone pigment

- see chromatic colors, just as our calculations predict, but because they have only two
types of cones, they confuse some colors that trichromats can distinguish.
- needs only two wavelengths to match any other wavelength in the spectrum.

Ishihara plates - color vision test that uses stimuli that can be used to diagnose color deficiency

unilateral dichromat — a person with trichromatic vision in one eye and dichromatic vision in
the other

three major forms of dichromatism:

● protanopia - inherited through a gene located on the X chromosome
- affects 1 percent of males and 0.02 percent of females
- A protanope is missing the long-wavelength pigment. As a result, a protanope
perceives short-wavelength light as blue, and as the wavelength is increased, the
blue becomes less and less saturated until, at 492 nm, the protanope perceives
gray.

○ neutral point - wavelength at which the protanope perceives gray

- wavelengths above the neutral point, the protanope perceives
yellow

● deuteranopia - inherited through a gene located on the X chromosome

- affects about 1 percent of males and 0.01 percent of females
- A deuteranope is missing the medium-wavelength pigment. A deuteranope
perceives blue at short wavelengths, sees yellow at long wavelengths, and has a
neutral point at about 498 nm.

● tritanopia - very rare, affecting only about 0.002 percent of males and 0.001 percent of
females
- A tritanope is missing the short-wavelength pigment.
- A tritanope sees colors and sees the spectrum as blue at short wavelengths, red
at long wavelengths, and a neutral point at 570 nm
anomalous trichromatism - another prominent type of color deficiency

anomalous trichromat - needs three wavelengths to match any wavelength, just as a normal
trichromat does.
- mixes these wavelengths in different proportions from a trichromat, and is not as good as
a trichromat at discriminating between wavelengths that are close together.

Opponent-Process Theory of Color Vision - stated that there are two pairs of chromatic
colors, red–green and blue–yellow

Two Types of Behavioral Evidence for Opponent-

Process Theory:
● Phenomenological evidence - is based on color experience
○ Color circle - arranges perceptually similar colors next to each other around its
perimeter
- Colors on the left appear blueish, colors on the right appear
yellowish, colors on the top appear reddish, and colors on the
bottom appear greenish. Lines connect opponent colors.
- colors across from each other are complementary colors— colors
which when combined cancel each other to create white or gray

○ Primary Colors (unique hues) - red, yellow, green, and blue—and proposed
that each of the other colors are made up of combinations of these primary
colors.

○ hue scaling - participants were given colors from around the hue circle and told
to indicate the proportions of red, yellow, blue, and green that they perceived in
each color

● Psychophysical Evidence
○ hue cancellation - to provide quantitative measurements of the strengths of the
B–Y and R–G components of the opponent mechanisms
- used to determine the strength of the yellow mechanism by
determining how much blue needs to be added to cancel
yellowness at each wavelength.

opponent neurons - responded with an excitatory response to light from one part of the
spectrum and with an inhibitory response to light from another part
- certainly important for color perception, because opponent responding is how color is
represented in the cortex

Three Receptive field layouts:

 ● circular single-opponent cortical neuron - This +M –L neuron has a center-surround
receptive field. Its firing increases when a medium-wavelength light is presented to the
center area of the receptive field and decreases when a long-wavelength light is
presented to the surrounding area.
● circular double-opponent neuron - Firing increases to medium-wavelength light
presented to the center, and to long-wavelength light presented to the surround. Firing
decreases to long-wavelength light presented to the center and medium-wavelength light
presented to the surround.
● side-by-side double-opponent cortical neuron- This neuron increases firing when a
vertical medium-wavelength bar is presented to the left side and when a vertical
long-wavelength bar is presented to the right side and decreases firing when a vertical
long-wavelength bar is presented to the left side and when a vertical
medium-wavelength bar is presented to the right side.

Semir Zeki - popularized the idea of an area specialized for color based on his finding that
many neurons in a visual area called V4 respond to color

reject the idea of a “color center” in favor of the idea that color processing is distributed across
a number of cortical areas.

color constancy—we perceive the colors of objects as being relatively constant even under
changing illumination.

chromatic adaptation - process wherein the eye’s sensitivity is affected by the color of the
illumination of the overall scene
- prolonged exposure to chromatic color

partial color constancy — the perception of the object is shifted after adaptation, but not as
much as when there was no adaptation.
- the eye can adjust its sensitivity to different wavelengths to keep color perception
approximately constant as illumination changes.

Memory Color - effect on perception of prior knowledge of the typical colors of objects

lightness constancy - the fact that we see whites, grays, and blacks as staying about the same
shade under different illuminations

intensity of light reaching the eye from an object depends on two things:
(1) illumination — the total amount of light that is striking the object’s surface
(2) object’s reflectance — the proportion of this light that the object reflects into our eyes

When lightness constancy occurs, our perception of lightness is determined not by the intensity
of the illumination hitting an object, but by the object’s reflectance.
Our perception of an object’s lightness is related not to the amount of light that is reflected from
the object, which can change depending on the illumination, but to the percentage of light
reflected from the object, which remains the same no matter what the illumination.

Ratio Principle - as long as this ratio remains the same, the perceived lightness will remain the
same
- when the illumination is the same over the whole object, then lightness is determined by
the ratio of reflectance of the object to the reflectance of surrounding objects.

reflectance edge - an edge where the reflectance of two surfaces changes.

illumination edge - an edge where the lighting changes

Shadow’s penumbra - fuzzy border at the edge of the shadow

- lightness constancy occurs when the penumbra is present but does not occur when it is
masked.

wavelengths are completely colorless. As illumination decreases, we dark adapt and our
vision shifts to the rods. This causes hues such as blue, green, and red to become less distinct
and eventually disappear altogether, until the spectrum, once lushly colored, becomes a series
of different shades of gray.

the nervous system constructs color from wavelengths through the action of the cones.

The idea that color is not a property of wavelengths was asserted by Isaac Newton in his
Optiks.
- the colors we see in response to different wavelengths are not contained in the rays of
light themselves, but that the rays “stir up a sensation of this or that color.”

habituation procedure - used by Bornstein to determine whether infants perceived color

categories by presenting a 510-nm light

Dishabituation - infants’ increase in looking time

novelty-preference procedure - used to study infant color vision.