{"id":148331,"date":"2022-10-17T09:22:18","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T14:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/human-tetrachromacy-is-real-heres-what-we-know"},"modified":"2022-10-17T09:22:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T14:22:18","slug":"human-tetrachromacy-is-real-heres-what-we-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/10\/human-tetrachromacy-is-real-heres-what-we-know","title":{"rendered":"Human Tetrachromacy is Real. Here\u2019s What We Know"},"content":{"rendered":"

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After decades of exhaustive study, scientists have concluded that human tetrachromacy is real. Some people have a truly superhuman range of color vision. In fact, there are two distinct types of tetrachromacy. In some cases, it\u2019s genetic. But in some rare cases, it can also be an acquired trait. While it\u2019s difficult to test, enough tetrachromats have stepped forward that scientists now have visual and<\/em> genetic tests for the condition.<\/p>\n

One percent of the world\u2019s population is thought to be tetrachromatic. These lucky folks may be able to see a thousand times as many colors as the rest of us trichromats. In order to test that idea, researcher Gabriele Johnson devised an experiment. She used precise amounts of pigment to create shades of paint that could only be distinguished by a machine \u2014 or a tetrachromat. In 2010, Johnson found a subject who was able to tell each subtle shade apart, every time \u2014 just as fast as trichromats could identify the colors they saw. \u201cWhen you ask them to discriminate between the two mixtures, a tetrachromat can do it very quickly,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cThey don\u2019t hesitate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concetta Antico is a painter and art teacher with genetic tetrachromacy. Growing up in Sydney, she says, she was always \u201ca little bit out of the box,\u201d alone in her own visual dreamland. She always preferred the kaleidoscope of colors she saw when she looked at the natural world. But nobody else seemed to see it quite like she did. So she decided to paint what she saw. \u201cI\u2019m sure people just think I\u2019m high on something all the time,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I\u2019m really just high on life and the beauty that\u2019s around us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After decades of exhaustive study, scientists have concluded that human tetrachromacy is real. Some people have a truly superhuman range of color vision. In fact, there are two distinct types of tetrachromacy. In some cases, it\u2019s genetic. But in some rare cases, it can also be an acquired trait. While it\u2019s difficult to test, enough [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}