Here is something to wonder: Is your red different than mine?

[Modelworks]

When looking at the graphs, it seems to me our eyes are sensitive enough relatively speaking to detect a single wavelength color(650nm and 651nm).
But since temperature will likely also play a role in the sensitivity for a given wavelength, it makes sense that we cannot discriminate at such a high level because it would vary to much and nothing would ever look the same. Therefore i think the brain together with the eye does do an averaging algorithm on color perception.

The thing that effects color perception more than anything in the environment is exposure to whatever the current lighting may be. If you are in a room with green lighting for a few minutes then are shown a picture under normal lighting your eyes will tell you the picture colors are not correct. It takes a bit for our eyes to adapt to a new lighting arrangement once the eye becomes saturated by colors.


That is the reason for the use of ambient lighting behind tv setups in home theaters. The light from behind the display keeps the eye from adapting to the dark room and then being overwhelmed by a bright color or flash on the screen. By lighting the wall behind the image the eye chooses that light level as the standard by which it should judge what it sees vs total darkness.

 

[C1]

It commonly occurs that one person sees a particular colour chip B as saturated blue with no admixture of red or green (i.e. as ‘uniquely blue’), while another sees it as a somewhat greenish blue. Such a difference is often accompanied by agreement with respect to colour matching – the two persons may mostly agree when asked whether two chips are of the same colour, and this may be so across the whole range of colours. Asked whether B is the same or different from other chips, they mostly agree – though they continue to disagree about whether B is uniquely blue. I shall argue that in such cases neither individual misperceives what colour B is. They differ, rather, in how they perceive the colour of B.

(from "Truly blue: an adverbial aspect of perceptual representation" - Mohan Matthen)

http://analysis.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/1/48.extract


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One of the most important lessons of the past twenty-five years is that human vision does not resemble the relatively faithful and largely passive process of modern photography [Pomerantz & Pristach 89, Treisman 85, Treisman & Gormican, Wolfe 94, Wolfe et al. 2000]. The goal of human vision is not to create a replica or image of the seen world in our heads. A much better metaphor for vision is that of a dynamic and ongoing construction project, where the products being built are short-lived models of the external world that are specifically designed for the current visually guided tasks of the viewer [Egeth & Yantis 97, Mack & Rock 98, Rensink 2000, Simons 2000]. There does not appear to be any general purpose vision. What we "see" when confronted with a new scene depends as much on our goals and expectations as it does on the array of light that enters our eyes.

 

[f4phantom2500]

Keep in mind that is a very minimal version of the test. The real test is made of 512 colors.

yeah, but i dont plan to take the real thing; just wondering how people do on the online one. the 'results' page on the website are obv a bunch of fake scores; the lowest score was several thousand below 0 (0 is perfect).

 

[William Gaatjes]

I think to discuss the topic you have to separate two parts of the process. One would be acquiring the color information and the second processing the information. It is very similar to how digital cameras work. The first part of the camera is the optics (lens of the eye, iris) which focus the signal on the CCD (rods and cones of the eye) . The second part is the signals from the CCD that are then interpreted by the DSP chip (brain) and processed as colors.

If two eyes process color the same, the signals to the two different brains would be the same ,then you could discuss if the two brains being different had any effect on what color is perceived to be.

A study was done where they blindfolded people for 1 week. During that time they did mri scans to see how the brain adapted. While blindfolded the brain started to use the visual cortex area to process sounds and touch. It was the same across all participants. It was as if the brain determined after a few days that since the visual cortex was no longer being of any use it would allocate the area to helping out the brains other functions.

They also did studies of people with half a brain or less. Normally that would mean serious disability. Instead these people were nearly the same as anyone else. What they lacked were things like being able to do math or draw. The brain seemed to pick what was the most essential and map out all the functions it could with the space available until there was no more room. The study made the conclusion that people who say humans only use a small percentage of the brain are wrong, that really the brain uses every bit of space it has if it is available.

Yes very true. The 10 % story is another illusion so many people hang on too.
I have read similar stories where people have a such a limited amount of brain matter that it almost seems relevant to ask the question, how much do you need ? A lot as it indeed turns out. I bought a wonderful book about how the brain works in the past. It is amazing what the brain can do. But it is obvious that the brain stem and the limbic system must be intact. In contrast to popular belief, new research suggests that the brain is able to form new neurons. But the formation of new neurons happens in the limbic system. In the hippocampus it seems.
It seems that the new neurons become part of the new formed long term memory. These neurons migrate through the brain to the proper position and settle there.
Alzheimers occurs here. Diseased neurons are created and migrate around the brain. Creating slowly more and more havoc.
Research suggests that at least some versions of the herpes simplex virus can cause Alzheimer in later life. Dna of HSV1 is found in the typical plaques of Alzheimer patients. Now is that not strange ? To get Alzheimer it seems the virus is needed together with a specific type of inherited gene.


The brain is highly adaptive and it would be great to get control of this adaptation. Imagine of doing a lot of sport, and after a 15 minute meditation your bad at sports but great at math and physics almost like an autistic person. When you need to be in a social event, you change once again after meditation into a very social person but release you calculating power.
I am sure it is possible but just not in the current world with the current way of thinking.