Back to the banana ! When the reflected light from the banana reaches the cones , it stimulates them to varying degrees . The resulting signal is carried along the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the occipital lobe of the brain which processes the information and translates it into a colour - in this case , yellow .
INTERPRETATION
“ Roses are red , violets are blue - or are they ? The colours you see may not always be the same as the colours someone else sees ... as we see colour through our brains , not our eyes ”.
- Beau Lotto
It has been argued that colours are not real - they are “ created ” by our brain . Rods give us the ability to detect the presence and intensity of light and thus allow our brain to construct a black and white picture of the world around us . Cones discern the different wavelengths of light and add colour to this black and white portrait .
Yet the way in which the brain responds to colour is dependent on how it processes what it sees and compares it with information already stored in memory .
Even under identical conditions , the same object may appear differently to different people . This occurs for two important reasons :
> The “ retinal mosaic ” ( the distribution of short- , medium- and long-wavelength cones ) varies significantly between people . Physically , our eyes react and process light differently . So objectively , the information reaching the brain can be different per person .
> The way our brain “ sees ” colour is largely a function of our past experiences . We perceive it in the context of what we have encountered before . With so much sensory information to process , the brain develops mechanisms to avoid starting from scratch every time . It has also been shown that age , mood , health , and culture all play a role in how the brain subjectively interprets colour .