Researchers in the United States have used lasers and advanced tracking technology to enable five individuals to see a colour no human has ever seen before.
The researchers claim that by stimulating individual cells in the retina, the laser pushed their perception beyond its natural limits, according to The Guardian.
The researchers, who have published details of the experiment in Science Advances on April 18, have named the new colour “olo.”
The five people on whom the experiment was conducted described the new colour as something “blue-green”, but have added that their description does not fully capture the richness of the experience.
“We predicted from the beginning that it would look like an unprecedented colour signal but we didn’t know what the brain would do with it,” Ren Ng, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, was quoted as saying by The Guardian. “It was jaw-dropping. It’s incredibly saturated.”
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Austin Roorda, a vision scientist on the team, said that there is no way to convey the colour in an article or on a monitor.
“The whole point is that this is not the colour we see, it’s just not. The colour we see is a version of it, but it absolutely pales by comparison with the experience of olo,” Roorda said.
On a question whether the world would get the chance to experience the new colour, Ng responded that it’s not possible anytime soon.
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“This is basic science,” said Ng. “We’re not going to see olo on any smartphone displays or any TVs any time soon. And this is very, very far beyond VR headset technology.”
The experiment, however, has left some questioning.
John Barbur, a vision scientist at City, St George’s, University of London, told The Guardian that the experiment has not led to anything new and has “limited value”.
“It is not a new colour,” Barbur said. “It’s a more saturated green that can only be produced in a subject with normal red-green chromatic mechanism when the only input comes from M cones.”
Humans see colour when light hits specialised cells in the retina known as cones. There are three types of cones, each tuned to detect different wavelengths of light: long (L), medium (M), and short (S).
