Think about the color purple. I’m sure you are imagining a variety of shades of the color of royalty from a deep violet to a subtle lavender and everything in between. But while it seems to be a fairly straightforward concept, describing a color is a much more daunting task.
First, we need to understand what color is and how people perceive color. To further confound matters, color vision from one person to another is not set in stone; the variety and combination of the cells in the back of your eyes will determine the colors you see, and the way you’ve experienced the world will teach you how to describe them to others. What started out as a concept that most children learn before they set foot in a schoolroom has quickly morphed into an immensely complex set of issues.
To help address some of the complexity of sight and color perception, we will approach it from a cellular level to understand how light can be transduced into a nervous signal. Using notes from class, please provide answers to the questions below:
1. How can visible light be described? What is the range of visible light in humans?
2. Using the prompts below, describe how a red apple appears red.
A- What is the light doing at the point of the apple? (Which wavelengths are absorbed, which are reflected?)
B- Describe what happens once the light reaches your eyes and how you perceive this information. (Through which cells? To which part of your brain?)
Trending now
This is a popular solution!
Step by step
Solved in 2 steps
