Color Recognition Not Innate

Ability to discern hues develops after birth, animal study suggests

TUESDAY, July 27, 2004 (HealthDayNews) -- People "learn" to distinguish different colors rather than being born with a natural ability to do so, a new study suggests.

Baby monkeys raised for nearly a year in a room lit by monochromatic lights judged color differently from normal animals, said researcher Yoichi Sugita of the Neuroscience Research Institute in Tsukuba, Japan.

Specifically, they had a hard time judging the color of an object during changes in the wavelength composition of the light reflected off that object. Sugita concluded that this property, known as "color constancy," is acquired after birth.

The study is published in the July 27 issue of Current Biology.

More information

The University of California at Berkeley has more about vision and color perception.

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