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The Perception Puzzle: Exploring the Science of Colour Vision

by | May 1, 2025 | Manuscripts | 0 comments

Mahi Alpesh Shukla, B.Optom. Student

KD Institute of Allied Health Sciences, Ahmedabad, India

 

In our daily lives, colour vision is essential because it enables people of all ages to recognise things and distinguish between different aspects in their environment. In addition to being essential for daily tasks, how people perceive colour has an influence on industries like technology, design, and healthcare. However, because biological and environmental variables vary, it is still difficult to define colour perception precisely.(1) This blog examines a variety of colour vision topics, such as deficits, research findings, and cutting-edge testing techniques.

Understanding Colour Vision Deficiencies

It is critical to provide easy and affordable methods for identifying moderate colour blindness since early diagnosis of colour vision impairments can result in successful remedies. Due to hereditary variables and structural variations in the eye’s cone cells, the majority of anomalies occur in the main colours of blue, green, and red. Oddly enough, euro cent coins have been identified as a ready-made instrument to identify abnormal chromatic vision, providing a useful and approachable way to evaluate variations in colour perception.(2) These results demonstrate the potential of commonplace items to further scientific understanding of vision.

The Subjectivity and Interpersonal Variation in Colour Perception

Colour perception varies due to biological factors and across different cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Studies have shown that while individuals generally agree on colour classification, these human-defined colour categories do not always align with how other species perceive colour.(3) This suggests that colour perception is both a subjective and species-dependent experience, further complicating the development of universal colour classification models. Additionally, one of the biggest debates in colour science revolves around whether colour perception is objective or influenced by interpersonal variation.(4) Objectivists argue that colour statements are based on objective facts, but research has shown that normal observers often differ in how they perceive unique hues. This variation presents a challenge in defining colour perception universally and has led to ongoing debates regarding the accuracy of colour measurement.

Future Directions in Colour Vision Research

Accurately measuring human colour perception is still a challenge despite a wealth of research.(1) Numerous numerical methods for assessing colour vision now in use are antiquated, based on sparse or homogenous datasets, and challenging to compare. To get over these restrictions, researchers suggest crowd sourcing massive global datasets using colour-accurate mobile devices. In addition to improving applications in sectors including media compression, textiles, food, and display technologies, this method has the potential to greatly improve models of human colour perception.

Conclusion

Beyond simple perception, colour vision is a broad and intricate area. Research is finding new ways to comprehend colour abnormalities, from employing euro cent coins as vision evaluation tools to diagnosing deficits via do-it-yourself testing.(2) Colour science is still complicated, as seen by the subjectivity of colour classification, problems with objectivist theories, and the requirement for better quantification methods.(1,3,4) Future studies might yield more precise models of human colour vision thanks to developments in data gathering and technology, which would be advantageous for both scientific and commercial purposes.

 

References:

  1. Obispo, S. L., & Mcleod, R. (2014). A PROOF OF CONCEPT FOR CROWDSOURCING COLOR PERCEPTION EXPERIMENTS.
  2. Pardo, P. J., Pérez, A. L., & Suero, M. I. (2002). Euro: A new color vision test in the pockets of three hundred million Europeans.
  3. Hansen, N. (2017). Color Comparisons and Interpersonal Variation. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 8(4), 809–826. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-016-0323-2
  4. Valenta, K., Bornbusch, S. L., Jacques, Y. D., & Nevo, O. (2021). In the eye of the beholder: Is color classification consistent among human observers? Ecology and Evolution, 11(20), 13875–13883. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.8093

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