PSYCH 1XX3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Color Vision, Trichromacy, Complementary Colors
Document Summary
The trichromatic theory of colour vision is based on the proposal that the retina contains three different kinds of receptors that are each maximally sensitive to different wavelengths of light. Sometimes it"s referred to as the young-helmholtz theory. Maximally responsive means that a given receptor will respond to other wavelengths, just not as much as it would to its peak wavelength. When you perceive yellow, it is because the red and green cones are equally stimulated. White is what you see when all three receptor types are stimulated. This theory follows from empirical observations about primary colours and colour mixing , namely it is possible to match all of the colours of the visible spectrum by the appropriate mixing of three primary colours. Thus, the theory postulated that you only need three different types of receptors to discriminate all the colours of the visible spectrum.
