Do You See What I See? Diversity in Human Color Perception.

Annu Rev Vis Sci

School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom; email:

Published: September 2022

In our tendency to discuss the objective properties of the external world, we may fail to notice that our subjective perceptions of those properties differ between individuals. Variability at all levels of the color vision system creates diversity in color perception, from discrimination to color matching, appearance, and subjective experience, such that each of us lives in a unique perceptual world. In this review, I discuss what is known about individual differences in color perception and its determinants, particularly considering genetically mediated variability in cone photopigments and the paradoxical effects of visual environments in both contributing to and counteracting individual differences. I make the case that, as well as being of interest in their own right and crucial for a complete account of color vision, individual differences can be used as a methodological tool in color science for the insights that they offer about the underlying mechanisms of perception.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-vision-093020-112820DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

color perception
12
individual differences
12
color vision
8
color
7
see? diversity
4
diversity human
4
human color
4
perception
4
perception tendency
4
tendency discuss
4

Similar Publications

Psychophysical assessment of color vision with the Cambridge Color Vision Test in unilateral functional amblyopia.

Arq Bras Oftalmol

January 2025

Research Nucleus in Neuroscience and Behavior and Applied Neuroscience, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.

Purpose: Amblyopia is a cortical neurological disorder caused by abnormal visual experiences during the critical period for visual development. Recent works have shown that, in addition to the well-known visual alterations, such as changes in visual acuity, several perceptual aspects of vision are affected. This study aims to analyze and compare the effects of different types of amblyopia on visual color processing and determine whether these effects are correlated with visual acuity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Feature-selective adaptation of numerosity perception.

Proc Biol Sci

January 2025

Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Pharmacology and Child Health, University of Florence, Florence, Italy.

Perceptual adaptation has been widely used to infer the existence of numerosity detectors, enabling animals to quickly estimate the number of objects in a scene. Here, we investigated, in humans, whether numerosity adaptation is influenced by stimulus feature changes as previous research suggested that adaptation is reduced when the colour of adapting and test stimuli did not match. We tested whether such adaptation reduction is due to unspecific novelty effects or changes of stimuli identity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Previously we reported color matches measured in young adults using a newly developed multi-wavelength LED-based visual trichromator with which we estimated their individual L-, M- and S-cone spectral sensitivities. Here, we extend those measurements to include 70 additional observers aged between 8 to 80 years. As in our previous work, a series of color matching measurements were made to a reference white.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Previous research has shown that, when multiple similar items are maintained in working memory, recall precision declines. Less is known about how heterogeneous sets of items across different features within and between modalities impact recall precision. In two experiments, we investigated modality (Experiment 1, n = 79) and feature-specific (Experiment 2, n = 154) load effects on working memory performance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Flower colour contrast, 'spectral purity' and a red herring.

Plant Biol (Stuttg)

January 2025

Department of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.

Nature offers a bewildering diversity of flower colours. Understanding the ecology and evolution of this fantastic floral diversity requires knowledge about the visual systems of their natural observers, such as insect pollinators. The key question is how flower colour and pattern can be measured and represented to characterise the signals that are relevant to pollinators.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!