Color Color in the Eye

Rods vs. Cones

Humans have two classes of photoreceptors, rods and cones; we have one kind of rod and three kinds of
cones, distinguished by differences in their peak spectral sensitivity. Rods are far more sensitive to visible light
than cones, making them useful in low-level lighting conditions, such as nighttime. Cones are used for daylight
vision when more light is available. A single type of photoreceptor, rod or cone, cannot by itself report color,
which can be understood as a consequence of the principle of univariance, described below. To see in color,
you need at least two different types of photoreceptors to be operating at the same time. Because we have
three types of cones, we can therefore see color when cones are activein other words during daylight. Did
you know that in dim light, a moonless night, you cannot see color? Because the visual system processes
information via parallel pathways, a loss of color vision at night does not constitute a loss of vision altogether.
The ability to perceive forms and depth persists.

The Principle of Univariance

Most individuals are trichromats, having three cone types, with peak sensitivity to long-, middle-, and shortwavelengths (L, M, S). An individual cone response varies in the degree to which it is activated, which depends
on two variables:
1.

the wavelength of absorbed light; and

2.

the intensity of the light (the amount of light).

Wavelengths that match the spectral sensitivity of the cone type will be absorbed more readily and cause more
activation of the cone; more intense light will also be absorbed more readily and cause more activation. The
same cone could therefore respond in the same fashion to different wavelengths (say, long and middle) as long
as the intensity is adjusted appropriately. This is known as the principle of univariance. As a result, a single
cone response by itself cannot tell the brain the color of the stimulus. Color vision is achieved only in the
presence of two or more cones with overlapping but different spectral sensitivity curves.
Any physical stimulus that elicits the same activity from the cones will appear the same. Because of the broad
absorption curves of the cones, there are many physical stimuli (with different spectral distributions) that will
elicit the same cone activity. These are referred to as metamers. The best example of metamers is yellow:
consider monochromatic yellowthe region of the spectrum that appears yellow. This is physically entirely
different than a mixed yellow made by mixing red and green light, yet the two yellows could be
indistinguishable to normal trichromats.

Color- opponency

Opponent Colors (CREDIT)

Color-opponency describes the observation originally made by Ewald Hering, that certain pairs of colors
appear to be mutually exclusive and cannot be mixed. For example, with a few very peculiar examples, colors
cannot be described as reddish green, or bluish yellow or blackish white. Opponency likely comes about
because of the way in which retinal ganglion cells sample the cone signals.
The photoreceptors talk to retinal ganglion cells via bipolar and horizontal cells. A given retinal ganglion cell
listens to only a small group of photoreceptors, corresponding to a small region of the visual field. This is the
cells receptive field. Different kinds of retinal ganglion cells have different physiological properties
distinguished by receptive field size, color-opponency, direction selectivity, temporal and spatial frequency
tuning. The ganglion cells responsible for color-opponent processes can be divided into two classes:
magnocellular and parvocellular. The Parvocellular cells deal with color information and can be divided into two
groups: those that evaluate differences in firing of L versus M cones and those that evaluate differences
between S cones and a combined signal from L an M cones. These cells were once thought to underlie
Herings opponent colors, but careful analysis of the spectral tuning of LGN cells shows that this is not the
case. But it is still widely assumed (and probably true!) that these cone-opponent cells are the building blocks
for color computations performed by downstream areas.
The diagram below shows how the amount of red-or-green and yellow-or-blue combine to give rise to all hues:

Color Color Basics

What is color?
Color is a perceptual experience ENCODED BY THE BRAIN; colors can be imagined in the absence of visual
stimuli, although we know relatively little about the mechanisms underlying these "memory" colors. We know
more about how color is elicited in response to the relative activation of light-sensitive photoreceptors in the
eye. Color is related to the PHYSICAL SPECTRUM; but that is not the end of the story.
Color can be described in terms of HUE, which refers to the pure spectral colorgenerally red, orange, yellow,
green, blue, and violetvalue (or luminance, also referred to as brightness), which refers to intensitythe
degree of darkness or lightnessand saturationa fully saturated color contains no white. The value and
saturation of a spectral color can alter its perception greatly. Consider brown, which can be produced by
placing an orange disc on a black background and then raising the luminance of the background until the
background is white. Try it!
All hues can be mixed from three primary colors. There are many sets of primary colors. A set of primary colors
is simply defined as follows: any set of three colors in which each color cannot be mixed by a combination of
the other two. The most useful set of primaries for mixing lights are red, green and blue, because these expand
the saturation of the color gamut produced.
Color mixing can be additive or subtractive. Additive mixing happens when colored lights are mixed and
subtractive mixing happens when pigments are mixed:

These properties are investigated in a course activity in which alternating blue and yellow dots are painted on
an index card and viewed from a distance beyond which individual dots can be discerned. The wet dots are
then mixed and re-viewed. Blue and yellow light reflected from individual dots is optically mixed by an additive
process while blue and yellow pigments are mixed by a subtractive one. What do you expect youll see when
you look at a pointillist scene comprised of tiny blue and yellow dots? Try it yourself!

How is color measured?

The Munsell system, developed by the artist Albert Munsell, characterizes color in purely perceptual terms:
Munsell mixed colored chips to produce a series of a 100 colors spanning the color circle with what he
considered to be equal color distances between all pairs of colors. Hue (the property of color we describe as
red, orange, blue etc) is displayed around the perimeter of slices through the Munsell color solid; units of
chroma radiate outward from the center; and brightness, from 0 for black to 10 for white, define the trunk:

1931 CIE Standard

The CIE system measures color starting with spectral power distribution (SPD) a quantitative measure of
the power of light at each wavelength in the visible spectrum, measured with a spectrophotometerfactored
by the sensitivity of the photoreceptors. This is used to calculate Tristimulus valuescolors that can be
produced by the primary colors blue, green, and redby means of color matching functions. The tristimulus
values are used to calculate the brightness parameter Y and chromaticity coordinates x and y for a
chromaticity diagram which shows the boundaries of color perception and the range of color reproduction. The
system can be used to (a) measure color and model color vision, (b) predict the results of additive mixing, and
(c) describe standard illuminants in terms of the color temperature of a blackbody source.
The CIE system offers greater precision in color measurement than the Munsell since its parameters are based
on the spectral power distributiona quantitative measurement of the light reflected from a colored object
and are factored by sensitivity curves that have been measured for the human eye. The downside of the CIE
system is that it clearly over-represents some regions of the spectrum (like green), unlike the Munsell color
system.
To get a real sense for how this kind of color modeling works students in the course will use a PR655
spectrophotometer to quantify color and illuminants during a lab activity, and compare the spectra they obtain
with the colors of the objects as they perceive them.

Psychology of Color
What does color add to visual experience? For starters, objects of like value but differing color are made
discernable with color vision, such as a red apple against the green foliage of a tree. But perhaps more curious
is the emotional nature of colorto be green with envy, or sad with the blues
People really like color. They pay lots of money for the finest color televisions, even though black and white
would do a fine job of communicating the shapes, movement, and spatial scenes of a program. Some artists,
like Mark Rothko, have made moving paintings simply from large colored canvases. Pictured below is a portrait
by Matisse in which the form of a young lady wearing a hat is made completely clear even though the color
choices and transitions seem bizarre. The success of the piece can be understood once it is made achromatic,
an image that shows the accuracy of the values used. Here, Matisse hits home the point that color is not
necessary as an indicator of form, but it certainly does make an image more captivating.

Henri Matisse's Woman with a Hat in color (left) and black and white
(right) (CREDIT)

While some emotional responses to color are deep and may be universal, most are culturally biased. Different
cultures use different colors to symbolize the same powerful concepts. In much of the western world black is
associated with death and mourning whereas in East Asia white is the color of death.
Created by : Kate Ciurej 08 and Donna Yee 11
Created: July 9, 2008
Maintained By: Bevil Conway
Last Modified:July 21, 2013
Expires: July 21, 2013