Re: Colors in Sherall

On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 07:43:05PM -0400, Sally Caves wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Cowan" <jcowan@...>
>
> > Jake X scripsit:
> >
> > > I've never heard of that before.  It intrigues me.  Do you know of any
> > > sites where I can read about the condition.  What is the tachnical term?
> >
> > Tetrachromatism.  Herman Miller's Zireen are tetrachromats, and so IIRC
> > are bees.
>
> What is it, then, that they see-- or not see?
When you see a color yellow, your red and your green sensors in your
eyes are responding and your brain interprets that as yellow. That's why
a computer screen or TV which can only display red, green and blue can
display what you see as yellow. In theory, a tetrachromat could tell the
difference between the yellow in a rainbow and any yellow (red/green
mixture) a monitor or TV could display. (In practice, due to the way
that tetrachromatism appears in humans, usually an extra copy of an
existing color gene, most human tetrachromats can only distinguish
between two close shades of green or red, and they're also usually
female. According to some sites, there hasn't been a scientifically
proven case yet. A google search will find you many tenative or informal
sites.)

--
David Starner - dvdeug@email.ro
Ic sæt me on anum leahtrice, ða com heo and bát me!

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