Got into a good debate today, and made an interesting point(BRAINTEASER)...

No, no... Roy G. Biv

 

<-- own3d

 

Interesting that human perception can only render complete images at 7000 HZ, but "color" is found by differentiating frequecies between 430 trillion Hz (red) and 750 trillion Hz (violet).

My mind is officially boggled.

 

Color is a reflection of different wavelengths of light. I believe viewing color is a chemical cascade that takes place, and the more chemicals down the line you go, the more the color changes. It's been a long time since neurophysiology though.

 

Okay - did a little research because I'm interested in how this stuff works:

The structure of rods is similar to that of hormone receptors. They are sensitive enough to detect a single photon, and make no claim to determining wavelength because they only determine the intensity of the light. For example, a cone sends a 1000x strength single to the brain and that tells you that there may be a star or something bright is across the lens from that particular rod.

Similarly, cones can only send a "magnitude signal" to the brain, but if there are three different types of cones, then the relative magnitude can be compared and the color determined. For example, if the brain gets 100 from a red cone, 100 from a yellow cone, and 10 from a blue cone, it will perceive an orange object.

So do you think that color perception comes on a chemical signal or an electrical signal? I don't see how a chemical signal could respond so quickly.

 

It is both, in a sense. The electrical depolarizations and repolarizations of nerves are based on the chemistry of the neurons and their membranes; there are sequential and propagated changes in ion permeability along the neuron during signal transmission. Chemical neurotransmitters are also involved as the message moves from neuron to neuron, but the distances traveled by these molecules are short.

You're right to suppose that the overall conduction velocities are not lightning quick. Neurologists measure the velocities routinely in their offices.

Visual evoked potentials measure the time from a visual stimulus to a measured response in the occipital cortex. The latency times are normally about 100ms. This is slower than a M3 SMG can shift gears, which I think can be as quick as 80ms in sport mode near redline and a lot slower than an F1 can shift at maybe 20ms range.

Seems amazing to me that we do as well as we do in the world.

steve

 

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