If animals see colors differently, how do we know the colors we see are really the right colors?

Question

Like dogs see black and white and for some animals the colors are brighter coloured, like infared

Answer 1

this question is a time old (and rather obnoxious) philosophical question pondered by many. is my green the same as your green? if not, what is it? i say obnoxious because everyone at some time in their life wonders this and, from my personal experience, thinks they are a genius for wondering it. as was stated, the colors you see are simply a representation of a wavelength of light hitting your eye, thus the color you see doesn't matter anymore than anything else you experience, its all the same stimulus, regardless of how you perceive it.
you have special chemicals in your eye that are light sensitive and only respond to very limited wavelengths of light. when a specific wavelength of light hits one of these chemicals, the chemical changes its shape due to the energy of the light photon and sends a signal to your brain that says "here's the wavelength, what say you about its color?"
based on which of these chemicals the photons are able to stimulate and which they arent, your brain can determine a color so as to represent the world around it (you). the human eye can see wavelengths from about 400nm (violet) to 700nm (red). some animals have the ability to see wavelength shorter than violet (ultraviolet) or longer than red (infrared)

Answer 2

A lot of very great answers so far, I might add though,
technically there or no right or wrong colors. If you want to really get down to it. Colored objects do not exist in the actual natural world. Color is only a physical response to the stimuli of certain wavelengths that are in the light. The waves are not colored themselves, they just have different frequencies. And, those different frequencies stimulate the different cones in our eyes.
It is like the tree falling in a forest.
If there is a red rubber ball, but no eye of any kind around to see it, is the rubber ball red?
The answer is no, until an eye perceives it, it has no color.

Answer 3

Primary colors are not a fundamental property of light but rather a biological concept, based on the physiological response of the human eye to light. Fundamentally, light is a continuous spectrum of wavelengths, meaning that there are an infinite number of colors. However, the human eye normally contains only three types of color receptors called cones. These respond to specific wavelengths of light. Although the peak responsivities of the cones do not occur at the frequencies corresponding to red, green, and blue, those three colors were probably chosen as primary because with them it is possible to almost independently stimulate the three types of color receptors, providing a wide gamut of experiences.

Answer 4

This is a classic angels dancing on pins type of dilema. The problem is that color perception is a subjective experience while physics deals only with the objective. That is, the question is not a meaningful inquiry of a physical state since there is in principle no experiment that can be performed to discriminate between different views on the matter.

Unlike mojo, I don't consider such questions obnoxious, unless of course you don't agree me. So there :-)

Answer 5

In my opinion the question you ask points to something very mysterious about Nature that has not yet been understood. Color sensation (and, in fact, any sensation) is necessarily subjective. To ask about "the really right colors" implies there is an objective truth to color sensation, but I'd say that's not so. There's only a subjective truth. Whatever sensation you experience when a certain wavelength photon enters your eye is entirely private to you. No one else (no matter how fancy their observing equipment may be) can ever see what it is you are experiencing when that photon hits your eye. Thus, I would say, it is impossible to compare one's color sensation with another's or to say which one's is "really right".

Answer 6

Its true that colors can be objectively defined with wavelengths, but that does not at all mean we all perceive colors the same. Although looking at a green object, we all are seeing a certain wavelength, it may "look" different to each of us. There's really no way to compare out perception of colors with current technology

Answer 7

Deer supposedly see only monochrome, but mounting evidence related to the bright orange suits required by hunters, suggests that some deer perceive color.
As Mata said, what your brain works with as green may be a totally different process than my brain, but the frequencies our eyes see are identical, so our brains learn to differentiate between colors, or they don't (colorblind).

Answer 8

Colors can be interpreted slightly differently from person to person, however, colors are defined by their wavelengths, which are very precise. So while a shade of green might look slightly different to you than me, there is a scientific standard for what is green, what is red, etc.

Answer 9

What do you mean by "right" colors? Color is perception. In the human eye, there are three colored pigments whose activation behaviors are known very well. Hence, we have three primary colors. A shimp has 20. Neither of us is "right," we merely percieve light of various wavelengths in different ways.

Answer 10

Yes, some dogs can only see black and white while some other animals have eyes that can detect heat so it shows they surroundings as colour.