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0 pointsrojobuffalo3y ago0 comments

Ya, that's a lovely comic, but it appears to be a misconception. That comic is actually specifically called out in the book on page 107.

It's more like a 12 color lookup table.

> Every kind of red stimulates the bottom receptor of row 3. All shades of violet stimulate the top receptor on row 1

That's based on an experiment where they were trained to attack colored lights for a reward.

The comic also says they have 16 color receptors, but the other 4 (2 in the midband and 2 in the hemispheres), as far as anyone knows, aren't involved in color vision.

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GoldenRacer3y ago

Would they be able to distinguish between a light that is pure orange (a single 600nm wave length) and a light that is a mix of red and yellow that gives humans the perception of orange?

If so, I think that's still kind of a cool thing to think about.

shrx3y ago

It is my understanding that a mix of red and yellow frequencies would trigger the corresponding yellow and red-sensitive receptors, if it has them, but not orange.

rojobuffaloOP3y ago

That's my impression as well.

It's an interesting question. If you want to read more, the two researchers quoted in the book that I was summarizing are Justin Marshal and Mike Land. Each has a handful of papers that are cited in the bibliography.

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