Researchers at UC Berkeley have achieved a groundbreaking feat by creating a new color that only five individuals have experienced. They used laser pulses to selectively stimulate M cone cells in the retina, allowing participants to see a hue of unprecedented saturation. This new color, likened to turquoise but far more vivid, cannot be conveyed through standard media. The study highlights the complexities of color perception and the challenges of isolating the M cones, which typically respond alongside L and S cones, complicating our understanding of color.
"There is no way to convey that color in an article or on a monitor," study coauthor Austin Roorda, a vision scientist at UC Berkeley, told The Guardian. "The whole point is that this is not the color we see, it's just not. The color we see is a version of it, but it absolutely pales by comparison with the experience of olo."
"There's no light in the world that can activate only the M cone cells because, if they are being activated, for sure one or both other types get activated as well," coauthor Ren Ng, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley, told Scientific American.
Participants had to fire laser pulses into their eyes to experience this new color, achieved by selectively stimulating specific retinal cells without affecting others.
Research revealed a hue of unimaginable saturation that is described to approximate turquoise, but according to witnesses, it vastly exceeds anything visible in our natural color spectrum.
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