The rainbow may be updated. New high-tech methods for displaying colors allowed five subjects to see shades beyond the standard human range. the study, Released on April 18th In the journal Advances in science, It is a proof of concept of a technique that allows neuroscientists to investigate previously unanswered questions about visual perception. In time, it could help colorblind people experience the full-color spectrum, allowing regular prospects to distinguish between hundreds, millions, or millions of neglected colors that have not been detected so far.
“That’s the power of a technical tour.” Jay Natesa neuroscientist and professor at the University of Washington’s ophthalmology department said he was not involved in the new research. Popular science. “What they can do is it almost fall into the realm of science fiction. It’s so amazing. The technology that’s going on here.”
The newly described method and prototype machine are called the OZ vision system (it’s not so subtle to reach somewhere in the rainbow. The new colors enabled by OZ are named “Olo” references to its theoretical color space coordinates. [0,1,0].
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What is a color space?
Color space is the standard way to chart all the many shades that humans see. It is based on a triple idea. This means that most people have three types of photoreceptor cone cells. There are photoreceptors that are tailored to short, medium and long wavelengths, corresponding to blue, green and red, respectively. With these three types of cones, most can be identified somewhere around 1 million Different shades within the visible light spectrum.
However, even within the visible spectrum, there are colors that are impossible to actually perceive the trichromosomes. This is because three types of cone cells overlap with their response to light at a specific wavelength. The green-tuned middle (m) photoreceptor response overlaps with both the long (L) photoreceptor responses on either side of the spectrum. There is no visible light wavelength that naturally stimulates these M cells in the human eye. So every time you see green, you see something else mixed in with L or S cells yellow or blue.
OZ allows researchers to bypass the inherent limitations of human vision. This protocol allows scientists to stimulate individual pre-selected photoreceptors alone, including only M cells. In response, subjects peer into the green (or depending on who is explaining it).Imaginary colour”.
Welcome to Oz
The first step in OZ is to create a detailed map of the individual person’s retina. Classification of all cells. Using its personalized map, it programs an eye-opening laser to provide a beam of light that is accurate enough to hit only one cell at a time. To achieve this, the computer must detect and correct small, but inevitable movements of the human eye in real time. Stimulating only a single cone cell does not create perceptible colors, so Oz goes a step further and quickly moves the laser in a zigzag pattern across a given cell patch. Oz only transmits beams when passing through the target cell. For newly published studies, these target cells were cones classified as M photoreceptors in the mapping stage.
Usually, humans reach the retina in a specific proportion and pattern and perceive color based on the specific wavelength of light that stimulates photoreceptor cells. However, with the OZ vision system, cells can be stimulated very selectively, allowing single wavelength light to be used to create perceptions of countless different colors.
The current prototype includes a series of sensors, laser light sources, mirrors, and photon counters, combining multiple advances (one year) in the creation of a single system. “What has been developed over the decades is truly the culmination of all these technologies,” he says. Sarah Pattersona neuroscientist and assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Rochester, who was not part of the new research team. “I think it’s great,” she adds.
The study authors tested this process with five human subjects and took several steps to ensure that what these participants were looking at was truly new. “It’s a very well controlled experiment,” says Patterson. They stimulated OLO’s perception of different coloured backgrounds, and directly opposed some shades (still) in motion overlays and at the edges of normal human color space. In this last type of trial, they asked subjects to use the dial to change Oro Square until they matched the non-imagined color square. In all cases, participants had to dilute the Olo with a substantial amount of white light until they reported match.
Green Machine
So, what is this new colour?
“Olo looks like the most saturated turquoise or teal-green colour I’ve ever seen,” says Ren Ng, a computer scientist and visual computing expert at UC Berkeley and one of the study’s co-authors. Popular science.
In addition to being a member of the research team, NG was also one of the research subjects who first witnessed Oro in person. “It’s very prestige. It’s very perceptible,” he says, but it’s more intense than just natural colour. He compared Oro’s experience to the first time he saw a green laser pointer. “I’d probably say, ‘Wow, that’s the greenest green I’ve ever seen,'” but now Oro is beating it.
To see the colour, subjects had to be kept very quiet. The eyes were placed accurately, some were facilitated by bite bars. They then solidified their eyes to the points of space, and the laser stimulated the cell squares to the sides. The stimulation caused Oro to appear in a patch about twice the appearance of the empty full moon, Ng says. When it flashes, the motion correction system resets, so Oro was only visible for a few seconds at a time before disappearing and flashing back. Nevertheless, even that limited experience was “very cool,” says Ng. “I’m very tickling about it.”
Rainbow of possibilities
He’s even more excited about the future. Olo is evidence that this type of precision photoreceptor activation is possible. Now that this method has been proven, there is a possibility that more will be done.
The researchers are currently using OZ to investigate whether they can enable blind people of color who are functionally dichromatt (i.e., if one cone type is missing) and who can temporarily see the full human range. Theoretically, Ng explains that this is possible by artificially classifying a subset of corn cells as a type of photoreceptor that is missing, and selectively targeting synchronization with the remaining cells with laser stimulation. So far, he says his work is going well.
This is not the first attempt to reverse color blindness. in Landmark 2009 ResearchNeitz and his colleagues used gene therapy to introduce a third type of photoreceptor cells into Color Blind Monkeys. This experiment was successful according to all tests, allowing monkeys to distinguish between objects that they were unable to convey previously.
However, monkeys cannot explain their experiences to human researchers or clearly confirm that they recognize colors that they have not been able to do so before. “We don’t know what they do [were] says Neitz. However, the third photoreceptor provided similar opportunities as it could provide similar opportunities through OZ, whether it leads to normal visual recognition or anything.
[ Related: How this computer scientist is rethinking color theory. ]
In the long run, NG and his colleagues hope to go even further. Imagine that the author can ultimately simulate experience using OZ Tetrachromat:A very rare human with animals (such as birds and fish) and four types of photoreceptor cells and a repertoire of 100 times larger colours. But technology isn’t there yet.
Oz is an impressive achievement on all accounts, but the system is not perfect, note Gregory Schwartzneuroscientist and associate professor at Northwestern University. According to him, the research is “beautiful” and “really exciting.” However, this technology still has limitations. This has been recognized and cataloged in research by Ng and his co-authors.
Oz is a more targeted mining stimulation method than previously existed in humans, but is not 100% accurate. There is still a significant amount of “light leakage”. Approximately the photons indicated by the laser are ultimately captured by non-target cells. “They were very honest about it in their paper,” Schwartz says. Despite the leaks, he is sure Oro is still outside the normal human colour space.
Another major limitation is the size and scalability of the OZ prototype, Schwartz said. We are far from portable glasses and screens that can track eye movements enough to provide an Oz colour experience. Additionally, the need for detailed retinal maps adds resource-intensive efforts to add additional research subjects (and therefore the number of participants was very small and there was another limitation). However, the possibilities of hypercolor virtual reality are closer than ever.
Generally, in the field of color perception research, scientists use the same type of questions to move back and forth between the same type of questions, and Patterson says they discuss things like the neural pathways that allow chromoscopic vision, or the relative role of the retinal versus brain. But Oz offers an entry point for a whole new realm, she points out.
Already, five researchers have described Colourooro very similarly, and the fact that they can all recognize it as different from the normal human colour space encourages interesting questions about how flexible or rigid our visual perception is, she explains. Neuroscientists have long been uncertain whether humans could even understand new colours when presented. This adds to the evidence that in certain contests, our brains can understand unfamiliar shades.
“Sometimes, when you get your system out of normal operating range, you can really learn something new, like they’re doing here,” says Patterson. “I can’t wait to see what’s next.” It’s hard to imagine how colorful it is.
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