When brain chips break big, and commercial tech giants start sifting our thoughts and swapping cherished memories for subscription wine box ads, there will be plenty of reasons to be skeptical. But if this future is inevitable, we might as well dwell on the good stuff. But can even the finest brain chip reveal a new color?
The key here is that the definition of color, in a technical sense, relies on human perception. Color is a human perception. Therefore, while new techniques for producing stimuli that evoke color sensations will certainly be developed e. However, our attention might be drawn to perceptions that previously went unnoticed. Interestingly, we can perceive colors that are often considered physically impossible. For example, a single wavelength of light is typically considered the most highly saturated colorful stimulus that we can perceive.
If we spend some time first viewing a strong reddish stimulus closing your eyes and facing a strong light source can do the trick , we will adapt to the reddish light and thus become relatively more sensitive to green light.
If we then view the green wavelength of light again, it will appear to be an even more saturated colorful green—which is something that is sometimes thought to be physically impossible.
Therefore, there are no new colors waiting to be discovered for us to perceive in the future. Of course, the above only applies to colors perceived through the perception of light through our visual system. We can also perceive colors through non-visual means such as hallucinations, dreams, and our imagination. Give it a try. Assistant Professor, Biology, Johns Hopkins University, whose research focuses on human retinal organoids, among other things. Light is electromagnetic radiation that is emitted at different wavelengths.
These different wavelengths determine the nature of color. People see wavelengths from about to nm. We have three cone photoreceptors that detect red, green and blue light. Sensation by combinations of these cones allows us to see the colors of the visible spectrum. There are wavelengths of light outside of the visible spectrum, for example ultraviolet and infrared.
We know of several species that have opsin proteins that enable cones to see UV light. One of these observers was an artist with a large color vocabulary. Similarly, when the experiment was repeated with the image of blue and yellow stripes, "observers reported seeing the field as simultaneously blue and yellow, regardless of where in the field they turned their attention.
Crane's and Piantanida's paper raised eyebrows in the visual science world, but few people addressed its findings. Gradually though, variations of the experiment conducted by Billock and others confirmed the initial findings, suggesting that, if you look for them in just the right way, forbidden colors can be seen. Then, in , Po-Jang Hsieh, then at Dartmouth College, and his colleagues conducted a variation of the experiment.
This time, though, they provided study participants with a color map on a computer screen, and told them to use it to find a match for the color they saw when shown the image of alternating stripes — the color that, in Crane's and Piantanida's study, was indescribable.
In this way, we discovered that the perceived color during color mixing e. When shown the alternating stripes of red and green, the border between the stripes faded and the colors flowed into each other — an as-yet-unexplained visual process known as "perceptual filling in," or "image fading.
So if the color's name is mud, why couldn't viewers describe it back in ? It is therefore not surprising that we do not have enough color vocabulary to describe [them all]," he wrote.
Fortunately for all those rooting for forbidden colors, these scientists' careers didn't end in Billock, now a National Research Council senior associate at the U.
RK: And then little droplets of goop come out? VF: Little tiny droplets of goo. RK: And they fill up the tube. The same way you know you get maple syrup or rubber.
VF: But they leave it for a couple of years. RK: Years. VF: Years. RK: can happen in that time. JA: What do you mean? RK: Sap has secrets. JA: Secrets. What secrets. VF: Is now full of this - um quite um quite like plastic, SC: Hello. RK: Hi. RK: Thanks to this guy. GK: It is an important yellow. Masc voice: We have it powdered and in the resin form. RK: Imagine like a - a ball of earwax. But then you put a drop of water on it. RK: A little water. GK: - [X? GK: [XX? RK: Wow!
RK: Very bright yellow. VF: I mean it is - quite an exciting color. RK: Very very [X? GK: You get bad diarrhea. IG: Quite a a dusty area, just had a a table in there - RK: Big ole table where the workers would sit. IG: And then they would have this hammer- put the gamboge pieces on this - lump of iron and then - RK: And one day as one of the workers was chipping it and scraping at the resin - VF: There they were.
VF: Uh they found bullets. JA: Bullets? Like in the hunks of resin? VF: Lodged in them yeah. RK: Sometime in that 2 year drip drip process - toward the end probably as the resin was getting thick, IG: There was a total of about a dozen. And how they g to there and what they RK: Yeah wow. And in that year or two years - um - somebody um JA: wonder about the - does it ever give you pause?
IG: Did it ever give me what sorry? JA: Pause? IG: Pause, oh. IG: Um…no it These things were damaged by customers. IG: I had never thought about it until you until you pitched it like that. GK: It is about being related to something transcendent.
GK: [XXX? Therefore you - the [XX? JA: On the contrary. JA: This is Radiolab. JA: The most beautiful color. RK: Well. RK: Except red. JA: Nah. TH: Yes. JA: set set up who this guy is? TH: And he tells this one particular story in it that uh - starts in I think GD: He was 4 times prime minister in the second half of the 19th century. TH: Every school kid knows who he is even now.
JA: Mm. GD: Well he was a Homer fanatic. GD: He was a deeply religious man and for him the Iliad Masc voice: Sipping the black blood, the tall shade perceived me. And cried out sharply - GD: He read them over and over again throughout his life.
JA: So he was into Homer. Gladstone decided to write the definitive history of Homer. GD: This huge book actually 3 books. TH: Thousands of pages. GD: Where he discussed a whole range of of issues relating to Homer and his world. GD: Very very odd. TH: How so? GD: Looks like wine.
Take the color violet which to me and probably to you is like - JA: Purple - purple? JA: Iron. TH: So. TH: Chew on that. JA: [laughs] TH: Or how bout this one. JA: Uh no idea. Masc voice: Green honey? TH: And um this was totally puzzling to Gladstone. JA: You mean like how many times he uses the word black or blue or whatever? And um it only takes a couple pages for him to notice - GD: The predominance of black of white.
Black black black black black black black - TH: Occurred about times in both books. Masc voice: White arms. White clad. The white sail. White raft. TH: Occurred about times. Masc voice: White white white - TH: But - red? TH: Only clocks in at about 13 times.
Masc voice: The red wine to the gods. TH: Yellow? Masc voice: Dawn in her yellow robe. TH: Under 10 times. TH: Also under The color blue?
JA: He does not use the word blue at all? GD: No blue. TH: No blue. JA: Not even once. TH: Nope. So Gladstone thought GD: Violet hair and things like that. GD: Yes. That they saw the world TH: So Homer Jr would be able to see a little bit of yellow cause Homer tried really hard to see yellow and - JA: And then Homer the third would be better than Homer the second and so - TH: Yeah and then this would happen again and again every generation down GD: It does seem the only you know the only the only possible explanation.
TH: You know, so like when we were climbing trees. GD: Exactly. So um generally - TH: People mocked him. TH: Lazarus Geiger. JA: A German Jewish what did he say? GD: He looked at uh the old Icelandic sagas. Masc voice: [Vedic] GD: the Bible. Fem voice: [Hebrew? JA: Even the Bible had no blue?
BW: Development history of mankind. JA: Wait a second I know this voice. GD: Geiger has this amazing quotation. BW: Okay, [German] BW: [German? TH: You all ready for this?
JA: Yeah TH: So he did this massive analysis to trace when each color term was first introduced to each language. GD: Red always comes first. TH: Always red. JA: So black white red green yellow and then blue? TH: Well as people JA: Why?
TH: Well. JA: I mean why would there be an order at all and why would blue always be last? GD: Actually if you think about it blue is extremely rare in nature.
TH: Blue foods? TH: Like what? TH: We made them blue. Uh - JA: Genetically made them blue. JA: What about blue eyes? GD: Blue eyes at the time were in short supply - among the Greeks.
And the reason that red might have been first is because red - TH: Is apparently one of the easiest to produce. For thousands of years no one had it. GD: One exception, the Egyptians. TH: Ohh. TH: The Egyptians. And they and only they had their own word for blue. JA: I - I want more than that. TH: Wait what do you mean more? As I was calling around I ran into something that made me think - Masc voice: [X? TH: Called this guy named Jules Davidoff. TH: And a few years back, Called the Himba.
JD: The Himba. TH: You might think of them as like a very poor stand in for Homer. JD: All identical except for one. And they asked them very simply - JD: Which one is different? TH: When they stare at this screen - they just stare TH: No.
JA: Well is there something wrong with their eyes? JA: Well then how does he explain it? JD: Okay. When we when we decide to put colors together in a group. TH: And then give those colors a word like blue. Your your eyes are just kind of glossing right over it.
The way it does with us. Like cause if Homer had no word for blue and the word JA: Wait a second. Do you know where this breaks down? TH: Where? TH: Yeah why is the sky blue is is the the the first question that you always think of. GD: Exact - allegedly the first question that all children ask. GD: About 18 months. She was learning to speak. GD: Alma. TH: You know pointing at objects. TH: Oh okay. TH: [laughs] TH: Huh. TH: She thought you were kidding? GD: In retrospect there was no object there.
There was nothing with color for her. Now, you may look at this pigment and think, "I've seen that," or "it looks a lot like cobalt blue. But there's more to it if you dig deeper. World's most horrible color shade described as 'death'. The pigment forms in such a way that red and green wavelengths are absorbed, and light reflects back only blue.
It's super-durable and stable and does not fade.
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