Seeing Color

Seeing Color

Author's Note: I chose this topic to write about because I have always wondered how everyone sees the world. Through each other's eyes, we all see something different than the person next to us. I worked with reading articles and asking family friends to take a quick quiz on color see. I asked them to review it and get back to me. I learned so much from this; almost all of them had different test results, and they realized that what they thought was a red color was more of a green. I hope to help others in educating them on how the perceptive colors are seen are not what they are. 

“Color Blindness (color vision deficiency, or CVD) affects approximately 1 in 12 men (8%) and 1 in 200 women in the world. Inside Britain, there are about 3 million color-blind people. Around 4.5% of the entire population; most of whom are male.” Says Colorblindawarness.org. Although humans can have a percentage of color blindness and color vision assortments, animals are almost fully colorblind. To understand that not everyone has the same struggles as you, puts in perspective that some problems aren’t meant to be competition based between your struggles and theirs.  

First, we as people see different colors every single day. Some can pick out more colors than others. A Tetrachromacy eye is a range of having four cones in your eyes that perceive colors more effectively and have more colors on their spectrum. However, the average human only has three cones in their eye. Every day we get up in the morning and pick out our outfits. One person who is obsessed with fashion may reason; some colors don’t blend nicely. You wear a blue top with black leggings, red pants and a black top, grey sweatpants, and any color top, or even monochromatic and match all together. But now imagine waking up in the morning and being able to see all sorts of colors. Due to the extra cone in your eye; you can see past the reds and see 4 different shades of red. According to Tim Jewell from healthline.com; “A 2010 study suggests that nearly 12 percent of women may have this fourth color perception channel. Men aren't as likely to be tetrachromats.” Although this rare color conception is based on millions of different color spectrums throughout your eyes. The dream of having tetrachromacy may not come ever so lightly. The cons of having Tetrachromacy is that it can be exhausting seeing so much color throughout the day. Concetta Antico, an artist who can see around 100 million colors says, “The grocery store has too many harsh colors. Blue, Red, and Yellow. Yellow Stresses me out. I get tired from all the colors and close my eyes to rest. Yet I still have the arrangements of colors. Like a flame burning color assortments into my eyes.” 

In addition, every animal is color blind but some can see more than just black and white. As well as most mammals, it has been assumed that animals like dogs and cats are all color blind and can only interpret the colors black and white. Although, according to recent studies; it has been proven untrue. Cats, dogs, bulls, and many other animals can see in a variety of colors. For example, dogs can only see certain colors like blue, yellow, and some shades of grey. Dogs would most likely see a rainbow as dark yellow (brownish almost) light yellow, grey, light, and dark blue. Most likely not red, purple, or orange, like we do. Mammals like dogs and cats only have 2 cones in their eyes. Only allowing them to see the very limited color spectrum. 

Therefore, Tetrachromacy consists of having 4 cones inside the eyes. Allowing a human to be able to see a variety of colors, not regular people can see. Up to around 100 million different shades of color is what an average tetrachromatic human can see. Along with that, an average of 3 coned humans can see about 1 million different colors. However, dichromatism is the involvement of only seeing 2 of the 3 primary colors. Such as, in animals. The select animals can see the short variety of colors but not all of them. Humans and animals are all not all the same but are alike in different ways. Any human can be born with select color blindness, extra color awareness, or just regular color understanding. 

In conclusion, Animals and people are not all the same but alike in many ways. Next time consider the fact that we percept colors differently. This shows to understand that not everyone has the same struggles as you. Shapes into perspective that some problems aren’t meant to be competition based between your struggles and theirs. Next time, ask your friends what colors they see and maybe you’ll find a tetrachromatic or dichromatism with them! 

Here is a test if you want to try it out!  https://enchroma.com/pages/color-blind-test