How we perceive color?

Anthropologist tells about the structure of the human eye, night blindness and brain processing of pulses.

On the one hand, this question may seem a long time studied, and on the other - it may seem that we are only at the beginning. Like many others, we perceive color with the brain and its sensory receivers. In the case of the world - this is our eyes. The eye is a complex structure, but in terms of the colors we are primarily interested in the retina - the eye sensor. Although important it is the fact that the optics of the eye, especially its lens forms on the retina focused and inverted image. Just like in the camera.

As the matrix camera, the retina is divided into pixels, the pixels are only slightly larger than the camera. Pixels are the two kinds - is the rods and cones. For color correspond exactly cones; In any case, they make a decisive contribution. Cones in our eye about 7 million. The most sensitive part of the retina each cone is connected to a separate transmitting cell sends a signal to the brain, but the closer to the periphery, they begin to cluster. Like the camera, the cones are of three different types - are sensitive to red, green or blue color. From the combination of the signals restores brain and color. But when we say that the cone is sensitive only to a particular light, we are talking only about the maximum sensitivity. Each type of cone accepts a wide range of wavelengths; essentially, each sees each wavelength of the same amplitude. For this amplitude difference and brain restores color.

Buy Cogitum, Phenylpiracetam, Semax and Pantogam to awake your brain.

In fact, color is nothing else but our brain's response to a certain ratio of the signals from the cones. Light is an electromagnetic wave, can be extended to any frequency (or wavelength), whether radio or ultraviolet light, and only we, due to certain chemical reactions in our cones are able to attribute some long-wave colors. The easiest way, of course, to those which fall within the maximum sensitivity of our cones, - that's why the colors of the rainbow are not perceived the same way: it seems brighter red and yellow like a faded. But in fact it is even worse: not all colors that we see are of a certain wavelength, ie, they are pure colors... Most colors are composites - a complex set of many wavelengths, with the same color can be represented by a combination of different wavelengths. Until the response is the same eyes, the color of one of us, no matter what was in the spectrum.

The other sensing element of our eyes - sticks - very different from the cones. Firstly, they are more something around 100 million. Secondly, they transmit signals to the brain groups, for one transmission packet cell (brain goes only about one million channels along the rods and cones). Third, they are 100 times more sensitive, but are much slower in their response. With Chopsticks associated primarily night vision. When the illumination on the retina is not enough, the cones cease to give any useful signal, and included sticks, which have a single maximum sensitivity in the blue-green region of the spectrum, which is why at dusk relative brightness of the color of objects, from our perspective, changes . Red turns to black, and green, which was originally a paler red, can now seem much lighter. Feel sticks can even single photons. By increasing the intensity of the light sensitive substance sticks destroyed and restored only at the new rate decrease. Although there is a theory that the rods have a secondary mechanism of sensitivity and contribute to the formation of the colors in daylight. The basic arrangement of rods, but - on the peripheral area of the retina, in the center, in the so-called yellow spot, no rods; it is dominated by cones, which are responsible not only for color but also for the sharpness and speed of our sight.

How the brain manages to process millions of pulses and to receive such a complex picture - a mystery to me. Obviously, "processor" that is more powerful than that in a camera, and more reliable. But the brain can be fooled. Sudden movements, quick change of image or set of narrow spectral lines of rare but can put the brain into a dead end, and we will see the wrong color. In the twilight, when it is not clear, working more cones or sticks already, we can all easily be mistaken color. In such a complex system of surprise is the fact that the curves of sensitivity of our eyes are exactly the same, unless we do not have the disease of view.