Number of discernible colors

Range 10^6 - 2×10^6 different colors
Organism Human Homo sapiens
Reference Meister M., On the dimensionality of odor space. Elife. 2015 Jul 7 4 :e07865. doi: 10.7554/eLife.07865. P.1 2nd paragraphPubMed ID26151672
Primary Source Masaoka K, Berns RS, Fairchild MD, Moghareh Abed F. 2013. Number of discernible object colors is a conundrum. Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, Image Science, and Vision 30:264–277. doi: 10.1364/JOSAA. 30.000264.PubMed ID23456062
Comments P.1 2nd paragraph: "Any pattern of excitation among cones can be matched by an appropriate mix of three primary lights, and this is the basis for RGB color display devices. Cone signals get processed by several circuits in the retina and beyond. This system ultimately has limited resolution, and in practice human subjects can distinguish about 1–2 million different colors (primary source). Clearly, a quantitative understanding of color perception has both energized the search for the underlying neural circuits and made possible the design of image display technologies that mimic reality." See BNID 107061
Entered by Uri M
ID 112607