We see colors the same way, researchers (finally) prove
Neuroscientists have just demonstrated that color perception is essentially the same between two individuals, based on brain images obtained by MRI.
“ Is the color you see the same as the one I see? ” asks the journal Nature . It points out that “this question has tormented philosophers and neuroscientists for decades, and it is notoriously difficult to answer . ” This shows that the answer, which is the subject of a scientific article published in The Journal of Neuroscience , was expected. The New York Times sums it up thus: “ the experience of colors is quite similar from one individual to another, at least for those who see colors normally . ”
To prove this, Michael Bannert and Andreas Bartels, who work at the University of Tübingen and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In fact, “it is possible to infer what you are seeing just by looking at an MRI image in which activated brain regions light up ,” reports The New York Times.
First, the researchers compiled brain images from 45 individuals looking at different colors, allowing them to create a map of brain activity, which areas were activated based on the hues observed. “ They found that different colors were processed by very slightly different brain areas in the same region of the visual cortex, and that this was true across individuals,” explains Nature. Certain neurons respond better to certain colors.
Then the neurobiologists tested this: could they determine the color seen by a person in a second group of fifteen participants simply by analyzing their brain image? In the majority of cases, the answer was yes.
Jenny Bosten, a color vision specialist at the University of Sussex, UK, told Nature she was surprised to learn that some neurons in the visual cortex are specialized for a particular color, which is a new discovery.
