It seems almost a truism to say that colour is a sensation; and yet Young, by honestly recognizing this elementary truth, established the first consistent theory of colour. So far as I know, Thomas Young was the first who, starting from the well-known fact that there are three primary colours, sought for the explanation of this fact, not in the nature of light, but in the constitution of man. (James Clerk Maxwell, p. 267.)It is doubtless scientific to disregard (...) certain aspects when we work; but to urge that therefore such aspects are not fact, and that what we use without them is an independent real thing-this is barbarous metaphysics. (F. H. Bradley, p. 15.). (shrink)

Colour vision plays a foundational explanatory role in the philosophy of colour, and serves as perennial quarry in the wider philosophy of perception. I present two contributions to our understanding of this notion. The first is to develop a constitutive approach to characterizing colour vision. This approach seeks to comprehend the nature of colour vision qua psychological kind, as contrasted with traditional experiential approaches, which prioritize descriptions of our ordinary visual experience of (...) class='Hi'>colour. The second contribution is to argue that colour vision does not constitutively involve the ability to see colours, in a natural and categorically committed sense. I argue that two subjects exactly alike in respect of their constitutive colour vision abilities could differ in respect of whether or not they have categorical perception of colour. The argument is supported by thought experiment and dissociations observed in cognitive neuropsychology. The argument also bears connections to recent neo-Whorfian accounts of colour categorization. _1._ Introduction _2._ Colour Vision, Experience, and Natures _3._ The Central Argument _3.1._ Colour constancy and discrimination _3.2._ Dissociating colour vision and categorical perception for colour _4._ Whorf and the View from Cognitive Neuropsychology _5._ Conclusion. (shrink)

Colour fascinates all of us, and scientists and philosophers have sought to understand the true nature of colour vision for many years. In recent times, investigations into colour vision have been one of the main success stories of cognitive science, for each discipline within the field - neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, computer science and artificial intelligence, and philosophy - has contributed significantly to our understanding of colour. Evan Thompson's book is a major contribution to this (...) interdisciplinary project. Colour Vision provides an accessible review of the current scientific and philosophical discussions of colour vision. Thompson steers a course between the subjective and objective positions on colour, arguing for a relational account. This account develops a novel `ecological' approach to colour vision in cognitive science and the philosophy of perception. It is vital reading for all cognitive scientists and philosophers whose interests touch upon this central area. (shrink)

b>. Computational models of colour vision assume that the biological function of colour vision is to detect surface reflectance. Some philosophers invoke these models as a basis for 'externalism' about perceptual content (content is distal) and 'objectivism' about colour (colour is surface reflectance). In an earlier article (Thompson et al. 1992), I criticized the 'computational objectivist' position on the basis of comparative colour vision: There are fundmental differences among the colour (...) class='Hi'>vision of animals and these differences do not converge on the detection of any single type of environmental property. David R. Hilbert (1992) has recently defended computational objectivism against my 'comparative argument;' his arguments are based on the externalist approach to perceptual content originally developed by Mohan Matthen (1988) and on the computationally inspired theory of the evolutionary basis for trichromacy developed by Roger N. Shepard (1990). The present article provides a reply to Hilbert with extensive criticism of both Matthen's and Shepard's theories. I argue that the biological function of colour vision is not to detect surface reflectance, but to provide a set of perceptual categories that can apply to objects in a stable way in a variety of conditions. Comparative research indicates that both the perceptual categories and the distal stimuli will differ according to the animal and its visual ecology; therefore externalism and objectivism must be rejected. (shrink)

This book is a major contribution to the interdisciplinary project of investigating the true nature of color vision.

What is colour vision for? In the popular imagination colour vision is for “seeing the colours” — adding hue to the achromatic world of shape, depth and motion. On this view colour vision plays little more than an ornamental role, lending glamour to an otherwise monochrome world. This idea has guided much theorising about colour within vision science and philosophy. However, we argue that a broader approach is needed. Recent research in the (...) psychology of colour demonstrates that colour vision is integral to a variety of visual processes, helping us to perform many types of visual tasks. We discuss some of this research and consider its implications for philosophical theories of colour. (shrink)

The primary issues concern whether objects have colours, and what sorts of properties the colours are. Some philosophers hold that nothing is coloured, others that colour are powers to affect perceivers, and others that colours are physical properties.

There are serious reasons for accepting each of these propositions individually but there are apparently insurmountable difficulties with accepting all three of them simultaneously if we assume that color is a single property. 1) and 2) together seem to imply that there is some property which all organisms with color vision can see and 3) seems to imply that there can be no such property. If these implications really are valid then one or more of these propositions will have (...) to be rejected in spite of whatever reasons can be given for their apparent acceptability. Before going on to discuss possible resolutions of this apparent contradiction it is worth pointing out there our three propositions are not all of a kind. Proposition 1) is a metaphysical thesis about the ontological status of color and proposition 3) is an empirical thesis about what properties organisms with color vision are capable of detecting. If you accept 1) then 2) will appear to verge on the trivial, but if 1) is denied then the status of 2) will appear more problematic. In what follows I will have more to say about why we either should or should not accept all three of these propositions. (shrink)

The standard adaptationist explanation of the presence of a sensory mechanism in an organism--that it detects properties useful to the organism--cannot be given for color vision. This is because colors do not exist. After arguing for this latter claim, I consider, but reject, nonadaptationist explanations. I conclude by proposing an explanation of how color vision could have adaptive value even though it does not detect properties in the environment.

The standard adaptationist explanation of the presence of a sensory mechanism in an organism—that it detects properties useful to the organism—cannot be given for color vision. This is because colors do not exist. After arguing for this latter claim, I consider, but reject, nonadaptationist explanations. I conclude by proposing an explanation of how color vision could have adaptive value even though it does not detect properties in the environment.

Tracking theories of mental representation posit a privileged relation between color representations and the color properties of objects. Tracking theories of mental representation have been used to motivate color realism as they posit that the function of color vision is to represent the colors of objects. It has been argued that tracking theories have a major flaw, namely they cannot account for reliable misrepresentation. It has further been suggested that reliable color misrepresentation is a live possibility. In this chapter, (...) I argue that the current evidence indicates that our color representations reliably misrepresent. This conclusion undermines tracking theories and the color realist theories they purport to motivate. (shrink)

A survey of color science and color vision.

The topic of colour vision is one that integrates research from psychology, neuroscience, biology, ophthalmology, physics, and genetics. How do we make sense of colour in the world, and how has such an ability evolved in humans? How does the brain interpret colour images? Do men discriminate colours differently from women? Why do some people have problems perceiving colours? Mollon, Pokorny, and Knoblauch are leading authorities on this topic, and together they have brought together a stellar (...) list of contributors, encompassing all these fields. (shrink)

A critical survey of recent work on the ontological status of colors supports the conclusion that, while some accounts of color can plausibly be dismissed, no single account can yet be endorsed. Among the remaining options are certain forms of color realism according which familiar colors are instantiated by objects in our extra-cranial visual environment. Also still an option is color anti-realism, the view that familiar colors are, at best, biologically adaptive fictions, instantiated nowhere.I argue that there is simply no (...) fact of the matter as to which of these remaining options is correct. I blame this indeterminacy on the fact that color vision exhibits several of the hallmarks of a modular input system, as described by Jerry Fodor in The Modularity of Mind. (shrink)

Russell and others have argued that the real nature of colour is transparentto us in colour vision. It's nature is fully revealed to us and no further knowledgeis theoretically possible. This is the doctrine of revelation. Two-dimensionalFourier analyses of coloured checkerboards have shown that apparently simple,monadic, colours can be based on quite different physical mechanisms. Experimentswith the McCollough effect on different types of checkerboards have shown thatidentical colours can have energy at the quite different orientations of Fourierharmonic (...) components but no energy at the edges of the checkerboards, thusrefuting revelation. It is concluded that this effect is not explained by a superveniencedispositional account of colour as proposed by McGinn . It was argued that theMcCollough effect in checkerboards was an example of a local mind/body reduction, by which the different characteristics of identical colours falsifies revelation. This reduction being based on both physical and neurological mechanisms led to a clear explanation of the perceive phenomenal effects and thus laid a small bridge over the explanatory gap. (shrink)

The primary issues concern whether objects have colours, and what sorts of properties the colours are. Some philosophers hold that nothing is coloured, others that colour are powers to affect perceivers, and others that colours are physical properties.

The evolution of a variety of important chromophore‐dependent biological processes, including microbial light sensing and mammalian color vision, relies on protein modifications that alter the spectral characteristics of a bound chromophore. Three different color opsins share the same chromophore, but have three distinct absorptions that together cover the entire visible spectrum, giving rise to trichromatic vision. The influence of opsins on the absorbance of the chromophore has been studied through methods such as model compounds, opsin mutagenesis, and computational (...) modeling. The recent development of rhodopsin mimic that uses small soluble proteins to recapitulate the binding and wavelength tuning of the native opsins provides a new platform for studying protein‐regulated spectral tuning. The ability to achieve far‐red shifted absorption in the rhodopsin mimic system was attributed to a combination of the lack of a counteranion proximal to the iminium, and a uniformly neutral electrostatic environment surrounding the chromophore. (shrink)

It is argued that color constancy is only one of the benefits of color vision and probably not the most important one. Attention to a different benefit, chromatic contrast, suggests that the features of the environment that played a role in the evolution of color vision are properties of particular ecological niches rather than properties of naturally-occurring illumination. [Shepard].

Ross argues that the location problem for color-the problem of how it is represented as occupying a particular location in space-constitutes an objection to color subjectivism. There are two ways in which the location problem can be interpreted. First, it can be read as a why-question about the relation of visual experience to the environment represented: Why does visual experience represent a patch of color as located in this part of space rather than that? On this interpretation, the subjectivist can (...) answer Ross's objection by appealing to the physical location of reflectance rather than color. Second, it can be read as a how-question about visual representation itself: How does visual experience put together the experience of a color with the experience of its being located in space? This version makes the location problem a problem about visual experience itself and renders the ontology of color irrelevant to its solution. The location problem is thus no more a problem for the color subjectivist than for the color realist. (shrink)

What is the function of color vision? In this paper, I focus on perceptual phenomena studied in psychophysics and argue that the best explanation for these phenomena is that the color visual system is a perceptual enhancement system. I first introduce two rival conceptions of the function of color vision: that color vision aims to detect or track the fine-grained colors of distal objects and scenes (Seeing Color) and that it aims to help organisms discriminate, detect, track (...) and/or recognize ecologically important objects, properties, and relations more directly (Seeing with Color). I then discuss two kinds of systematic perceptual phenomena investigated by psychophysicists: approximate color constancy and color induction. I argue from the premise that Seeing with Color better accommodates and explains these phenomena to the conclusion that it is the conception that an empirically-guided philosopher of color ought to adopt. (shrink)