re blindsight in article pitt uucp geb cs pitt edu gordon banks writes in article werner tol mac soe berkeley edu werner soe berkeley edu john werner writes in article pitt uucp geb cs pitt edu gordon banks wrote explain i thought there were types of cones equivalent to rgb you re basically right but i think there are just types one is sensitive to red and green and the other is sensitive to blue and yellow this is why the two most common kinds of color blindness are red green and blue yellow yes i remember that now well in that case the cones are indeed color sensitive contrary to what the original respondent had claimed i m not sure who the original respondent was but to reiterate cones respond to particular portions of the spectrum just as rods respond to certain parts of the visible spectrum bluegreen in our case reddish in certain amphibia just as the hoseshoe crab limulus polyphemus photoreceptors respond to a certain portion of the spectrum etc it is a common misconception to confound wavelength specificity with being color sensitive however the two are not synonymous so in sum and to beat a dead horse when the outputs of a cone are matched for number of absorbed photons irrespective of the absorbed photons wavelength the cone outputs are indistinguishable cones are simply detectors with different spectral sensitivities and are not any more color sensitive than are rods ommatidia or other photoreceptors color vision arises because outputs of receptors which sample different parts of the spectrum cones in this case are processed centrally the handwave is intentional i ve worked and published research on rods and cones for over years so the adherence to the belief that cones can detect color is frustrating but don t take my word for it i m reposting a few excellent articles together with two rather good but oldish color vision texts the texts robert boynton human color vision holt rhiehart and winston leo m hurvich color vision sinauer associates the original articles baylor and hodgkin detection and resolution of visual stimuli by turtle phoreceptors j physiol pp baylor lamb and yau reponses of retinal rods to single photons j physiol pp schnapf et al visual transduction in cones of the monkey macaca fascicularis j physiol pp edwin barkdoll barkdoll lepomis psych upenn edu eb world std com edwin barkdoll eb world std com
