From Popular Science:
When Concetta Antico looks at a leaf, she sees much more than just green. “Around the edge I’ll see orange or red or purple in the shadow; you might see dark green but I’ll see violet, turquoise, blue,” she said. “It’s like a mosaic of color.”… This is the case with Antico; researchers confirmed that she is a tetrachromat in 2012. One percent of the world’s population is thought to be tetrachromatic, but it’s not easy to demonstrate empirically. “The difference between [the color dimensions perceived by] a tetrachromat and someone with normal vision is not as dramatic as the difference between someone who is colorblind and someone with normal vision,” according to Kimberly Jameson, a cognitive scientist at the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences at the University of California in Irvine. She and her colleague Alissa Winkler at the University of Nevada in Reno have been studying Antico for about a year to better understand tetrachromacy. The differences in color perception are hard to detect because they’re small, Jameson said, but the tests that are currently used are not designed for more than three pigments--red, green and blue.

For the full story, please visit http://www.popsci.com/article/science/woman-sees-10-times-more-colors-av....

connect with us

         

© UC Irvine School of Social Sciences - 3151 Social Sciences Plaza, Irvine, CA 92697-5100 - 949.824.2766