What are (and what evidence supports) the Trichromatic and Opponent Process theo

Question

What are (and what evidence supports) the Trichromatic and Opponent Process theories of color vision, and how does the anatomy of the visual receptors reconcile these two theories?

What is auditory masking, and how does the anatomy of the ear explain the phenomenon?

What are Bishop Berkeley’s two arguments for psychological atomism, and what facts about the visual system and visual stimuli argue against Bishop Berkeley’s position?

How does the cognitive view of classical conditioning differ from the behavioral view, and what evidence supports the cognitive perspective on learning?

Explanation / Answer

Trichromatic and Opponent Process theories of color vision are theories which explain our perception of color.

Trichromatic theory of color vision is also known as Young-Helmholtz theory of color vision. This theory defines the way retina allows the visual system to detect color with 3 types of cones/photoreceptors (Young, 1802). The cone receptors differ in absorption amounts due to amount of opsin (photo-pigment) amino acids in the receptor. The 3 types of cones are Red (long wavelength), Green (medium wavelength), and Blue (short wavelength).

Opponent process theory accounts for mechanism receive and process information from cones stated in above trichromatic theory. Opponent process theory of color vision suggests that our ability to perceive color is controlled by three receptor complexes with opposing actions that is in antagonistic manner (Hering). These three receptors complexes are red-green complex, blue-yellow complex, and black-white complex. Here, perception is through excitatory and inhibitory responses. These responses are controlled by opponent neurons, which have excitatory response to some wavelength and inhibitory to some.

Through this theory, we can explain the perceptual phenomena of negative afterimages. Example: If we see the red dot or box for about 30 seconds without blink and shift vision to plain white surface, we usually see greenish afterimage on that plain surface.

Both theories are complementary to each other for explaining our color vision. Trichromatic theory explains color vision phenomena at photoreceptor level and opponent-process theory explains color vision phenomena result from the way in which photoreceptors are controlled by opponent neurons.

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