Color perception in humans appears to change over the seasons, a new study from the University of York in England concludes. Researchers there tested how people perceive different wavelengths of light, paying careful attention to the color yellow.
Perception of colors differs between people and populations. However, "unique yellow" is seen in a fairly consistent manner between different eyes. Researchers wanted to know why perception of this color appears to be so stable from one person and culture to another.
Investigators on the study found that human eyes alter the way they perceive colors around them, as scenes change over the course of the year. For instance, in summer, people living in many areas of the globe are exposed to vast swaths of green as plants thrive. During the winter, eyes typically encounter more gray and white hues.
"What we are finding is that between seasons our vision adapts to changes in environment. 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 ... Our vision compensates for those changes and that, surprisingly, changes what we think 'yellow' looks like. It's a bit like changing the color balance on your TV," Lauren Welbourne of the University of York said.
A total of 67 volunteers were placed inside a darkened room. They were instructed to adjust a dial until they believed a light was showing a pure neutral yellow, with no signs of green or orange. The experiments took place in June and December. Welbourne found that subjects adjusted the controls differently between winter and summer, suggesting a shift in the perception of colors could be dependent on season.
"This is the first time natural changes in the environment have been shown to affect our perception of color. For me as a vision scientist it is fascinating as it is telling us more about how visual processing works," Welbourne told the press.
This new discovery could assist medical researchers and biologists in better understanding how human beings perceive color. This could potentially lead to new discoveries, benefiting research into improving the health and well-being of people around the globe.
The sample size in the study was small, so additional independent studies will still need to confirm the results of this research.
Discovery of changes in color perception over the course of seasons was detailed in the journal Current Biology.
Photo: Miranda Granche | Flickr
