While the four seasons often have their own unique set of colors, new research published in the journal Current Biology suggests that the way humans perceive these hues can also change from spring to summer and winter to fall.
Led by scientists at York University in the UK, the study looked specifically at the color yellow – which, along with blue, green, and red, is one of the four “unique hues” perceived by the human eye, according to Discovery News and The Telegraph.
These eyes see these four colors as “pure” and not mixed with any other color, the website said, and yellow in particular is said to be unique in that most people tend to agree about what “real” yellow looks like, even though their eyes might be different.
As it turns out, however, the new study indicates that our eyes tend to interpret what this “real” yellow looks like as being different during the winter than in the summer. In fact, according to the authors, yellow seems to look greener during the summer.
Like changing the color balance on your TV
Researchers from the York Department of Psychology recruited 67 men and women to gauge when a colored light had reached “unique yellow” during the months of June and January, and found that there was “a significant season change” in their classifications.
“What we are finding is that between seasons our vision adapts to changes in environment,” lead author and doctoral student Lauren Welbourne told The Telegraph. “So in summer when there is a much larger amount of foliage, our visual system has to account for the fact that on average we are exposed to far more green… It’s a bit like changing the color balance on your TV.”
The participants were each placed in a darkened room and asked to adjust to the light. They were then told to adjust on a machine known as a colorimeter forwards and backwards until they felt that it had reached unique yellow, with no hint of red or green. Welbourne said the findings will provide new insight into how the human visual processing system actually works.
“This is the first time natural changes in the environment have been shown to affect our perception of color,” she said. “Although there’s no disorder that this can fix, the more we learn about how vision and color in particular is processed, the better we can understand exactly how we see the world,” which could help experts “diagnose and treat visual disorders.”
(Image credit: Thinkstock)
Comments