The relation of light perception to colour perception / by F.W. Edridge-Green.

  • Fredrick William Edridge-Green
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The relation of light perception to colour perception / by F.W. Edridge-Green. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    persons whose spectrum is shortened at the violet end. Although such cases will have an appreciation of colour differences as good as that of the average individual, their colour sense will not be identical with the latter. This will be evident if we consider the influence of a shortened spectrum upon colour vision. The first evident fact is that bodies reflecting only light, the rays of which occupy the missing portion of the spectrum, appear black. Nearly all colours are compound, that is to say, the coloured body reflects other rays than those of the colour seen. Thus a blue-green glass may transmit the green, blue, and violet rays of the spectrum. Let us suppose that we have a substance reflecting the green, blue, and three- quarters of the violet, the colour of the body to a normal person being green. Then if we had another substance which reflected the whole of the violet, it would appear blue. But with a person who could not perceive the terminal fourth of the violet the colour would look exactly the same as the green one, and as he could not distinguish between the two, he would be in continual difficulty with blues and greens. All coloured objects reflecting rays occupying the missing portion appear darker than they do to the normal sighted, and are always matched with darker colours belonging to a point more internal. Thus a dichromic with a shortened red end of the spectrum matches a red with a darker green. It will be noticed that a shortened spectrum, especially if one end only be affected, may interfere very little with the general appreciation of shade. If, for instance, we take a case in which the red end of the spectrum is shortened, so that only three-quarters of the red of the normal sighted is seen, then all bodies which equally reflect or transmit these rays can be correctly compared, because a similar portion of light has been removed from each. It is only when one colour reflects or transmits the rays occupying the shortened portion and the other does not that there is any definite interference with the appreciation of shade. Again, if neither colour reflects or transmits rays occupying the shortened portion of the spectrum, there will obviously be no interference with the appreciation of shade. A very common mistake due to shortening of the red end of the spectrum is the confusion of pink and blue. If a person with considerable shortening of the red end of the spectrum is shown a pink which is made up of a mixture of red and violet, the red consisting of rays occupying the missing portion of the spectrum, only the violet is visible to him, and so the pink appears a violet without a trace of red. This pink is therefore matched with a violet or blue very much darker than itself. Mistakes which are due to shortening of the spectrum may be remedied
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