There have been significant advances in our understanding of mammalian color vision over the past 15 years. This paper reviews a number of topics that have been central to these recent efforts, including: (1) the extent and nature of ultraviolet vision in mammals, (2) the evolutionary loss of short-wavelength-sensitive cones in some mammals, (3) the possible roles of rod signals in mammalian co...

The reasons for the circular sense of human color perception generated by two sorts of color opponent neurons and three cone types are not well understood. Here we use geometrical analysis to examine the hypothesis that opponency, the recursive nature of color perception, and trichromacy arise as the most efficient ways of distinguishing spectrally different points on a plane using a minimum of...

Recent versions of objectivism can reply to the argument from metamers. The deeper rift between subjectivists and objectivists lies in the question of how to explain the structure of qualitative similarities among the colors. Subjectivism grounded in this fashion can answer the circularity objection raised by Dedrick. It endorses skepticism about the claim that there is some one property of obj...

BACKGROUND People with color vision deficiencies report numerous limitations in daily life, restricting, for example, their access to some professions. However, they use basic color terms systematically and in a similar manner as people with normal color vision. We hypothesize that a possible explanation for this discrepancy between color perception and behavioral consequences might be found in...

Eight percent of men are affected by color vision impairment – they have difficulties distinguishing between colors and thus confuse certain colors that the majority of people see readily. Designers of maps and information graphics cannot disregard the needs of this relatively large group of media consumers. This article discusses the most common forms of color vision impairment, and introduces...