(COGNITIVE DAILY) 14 July 2007

It’s one of those sit-com plots, that a woman will ponder over 13 different shades of peach while the man in the story can only see the one color. Clearly, just a joke?

Well, perhaps not. Recent research shows that there is more to color perception than previously thought. In general we have three different types of color receptor in our eyes (those with only two have one of the various forms of color blindness, something preponderantly male) but it’s been recently shown that some 50% of women (and almost no men) actually have four. When tested, the presence of this fourth does indeed lead to being able to perceive greater nuance in colors.

So the gag writers are correct: and the men should just sit back and let the women choose the color schemes.