How does color vision really work?
We all know about the standard theory of color vision -- that there
are three kinds of cones in the human eye partitioning the world of
colors into three dimensions. Researchers have even found evidence
for multiple pigments through molecular genetics.
But does this really explain how color vision works? There is a great
deal about color vision about which the standard theory says nothing
or indeed says the wrong thing. Consider the following:
The standard theory can not explain subjective colors where spectrally
ordered colors are induced with only time-modulated black and white
illumination as in the well-known Benham's Top.
Multiple pigments have been found within the same cone. This makes no
sense in the standard three cone model.
The color violet looks very much like purple, a mixture of red and
blue. The standard model fails to explain this basic fact of color
vision.
Using adaptive optics techniques it has been possible to stimulate a
single cone in the living eye. Instead of either a red or green or
blue sensation when such a single cone is stimulated (as required by
the three-cone theory) subjects report seeing virtually any color of
the spectrum, even white, regardless of the color of the illuminating
light.
Why do cones have a cone shape? To date no one has offered an
explanation of the absolute dichotomy in shape between the rods that
provide black and white night vision and the cones that provide color
vision in daylight. Are they different is shape just so we can tell
them apart?!
And what about color blindness? It has long been debated whether the
common forms of color deficit vision are due to missing "red" or
"green" cones or whether the pigments got mixed up so that, say both
"red" and "green" cones have the same green pigment. In fact,
experimental evidence exists contradicting both "explanations".
The standard model of human color vision is inherently a static
model. It utterly fails to explain many of the dynamic aspects of
color vision, including the "resolution of mixed colors".
An accounting of these and many other mysteries of color vision is
offered by a new, comprehensive model of color vision - the cone
spectrometer model. It directly explains all of the common phenomena
of color vision as well as a number of what have hitherto been
profoundly puzzling and enigmatic aspects of color. It also suggests
a new understanding of the common forms of color deficit vision and a
new approach to possible clinical treatments.
The details of the difficulties with the standard model and how the
cone spectrometer model resolves all these issues can be found on the
website:
http://ConesAndColor.net
Zetsu - 02 Apr 2008 19:56 GMT
Your message makes you sound like a bot.
But I still think this is a really interesting subject.
I think the one major reason that the 'standard theories' are not able
to account for a great deal of visual phenomenon - is because we need
to begin to take the mind into the picture a lot more. It's all very
well focusing on the actual eye, but I think what just as (or even
more, in fact) important is the visual processing centre.
If vision researchers or neurologists would spend more time conducting
further studies on the brain and mind side of things, I think we will
all make a great deal more progress than where we're at now.
Dr. W.H. Bates was one of these rare people.
He was revolutionary, way ahead of his time and even ahead of today's
time. He was the only researcher who made some REAL efforts into
researching BOTH the mind and the eyes together, and his work paid off
very well indeed. The testimony of this is seen in the hundreds or
thousands of patients that he went on to cure as a result of his
discoveries. (And the cure of imperfect sight is just as accessible to
today's generation as it was then, so read his 1920 book to find out
more).
One thought I sometimes have is that, for all I know, a friend of mine
might see things completely different to me. But he calls it 'red' or
'green' just like I do, because our mental comparisons of each colour
are the same in the proportion and way that they differ. If anyone
gets my meaning?
Colour vision is largely a matter of illusions and imagination (almost
entirely, in fact). Bates has made many detailed reports on this in
his articles and Better Eyesight Magazine.
Unfortunately, these have been ignored and ridiculed by the mainstream
(just see what things are like here) without hardly any prior analysis
of his work. Dr.Bates, one of the greatest pioneers of ophthalmology,
has been ostrasized and spat on by his peers, and it is very sad
indeed.
Zetsu
p.clarkii@gmail.com - 02 Apr 2008 20:04 GMT
On Apr 2, 2:35 pm, "drjo...@gmail.com" <drjo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How does color vision really work?
>
[quoted text clipped - 53 lines]
>
> http://ConesAndColor.net
its been a long time since I read up on color vision, but I used to
know quite a lot about it while I was earning my Ph.D.
I do not believe it is at all the kind of "conundrum" that you are
describing. there is quite a lot of post-receptor processing of input
from the cone photoreceptors that accounts for some of the questions
that you state, and the molecular genetics of color pigments is pretty
straight forward.
Ron Peterson - 05 Apr 2008 06:14 GMT
On Apr 2, 1:35 pm, "drjo...@gmail.com" <drjo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> How does color vision really work?
After the retina is illuminated, the nerve impulses convert from the
RGB model to something else. There are many layers of processing in
the retina behind the cones to get the visual image compressed enough
to be handled by the brain.
--
Ron