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All of us with normal colour vision agree that a banana is of similar or the same colour as a mango, both of which are yellow while matured. However, is what your “yellow” no difference from my "yellow"?

We see colours because of the presence of photoreceptors in our eyes, namely, rods and cones. There are three types of cone cells receiving red, green and blue respectively. However, the number of cones and their distribution in a human eye vary immensely. Some people may have a lot more blue cones than others. Our brain is a pattern-making machine and is constantly filling in missing details. It is instrumental in decoding colour, which is an illusion created inside our heads. During this process, it introduces a lot of variances among different individuals. Have you ever run into a situation when you call a colour red but your friend calls it brown or even orange? In fact, colour is highly salient to some people and less so to others.

It may not be an issue if we all see the same colours. The most crucial thing is that we are all biologically wired to respond to the colour spectrum in the same way. For example, we all wake up naturally when the sky turns from dark orange to yellow at the dawn of the day.

 

JPC Monthly Newsletter
 
Editor: Police Public Relations Branch, 11/F Arsenal House, Police Headquarters, No. 1 Arsenal Street, Wan Chai, HK.
 
Tel: 2860 6157
 
Fax: 2200 4304
 
JPC homepage: http://www.hkpjpc.org.hk
   
Police homepage: http://www.police.gov.hk

 

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