I was reading the following article, and thinking about how we see the
world. http://www.puplife.com/dogcaretips/howdogsseecolors.html The
article is about how dogs cannot differentiate things as clearly as we
can because they do not have the same color receptors. So for a dog a
yellow ball on green grass seems like a green ball on green grass and
is harder to see. Do other animals have the capability to see more
colors than we can and if so what would that be like? Has there been
any reasearch on this>

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Clarification of Question by benjaminpearson-ga on 16 Jan 2006 02:29 PST

Thanks,  
    This is a little off of topic, but if indeed I see pink as you see
green, could I feel rough as you feel smooth. Both are learned, so in
theory couldn't this be true. Could what I taste as apples taste like
strawberries to you? Does that possibly explain why different people
have different favorites. Maybe there really is just one best color,
we just all define it differently.

Ben,
Here are a couple of sites that discuss the subject.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/zoo00/zoo00274.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/vision.html
http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/17.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/color-vision-1
http://www.bio.bris.ac.uk/research/vision/4d.htm

You can find many more with a search for:  animal color vision

Cheers

There's been a ton of interesting research into this.  Many animals
can see more colors than we can, the most common color being
ultraviolet (insects and sone birds) and less commonly infrared (pit
vipers).  An animal may also be able to discriminate between colors
that look the same to us on account of their having more/different
color receptors---honeybees can discriminate between many colors that
look "yellow" to us, for instance.  Insofar as the number of different
color receptor types determines color discrimination ability, the
winner in the animal kingdom is (drumroll please)... the mantis shrimp
(10 receptors versus 3 in humans).  This is a gross generalization,
however, as birds (which usually have 4-5 receptor types) possess oil
droplets in their eyes that further enhance their color
discrimination.  Also, it's not just how many receptor types you have,
but what the specific wavelengths are they respond best to.  For
instance, recent research has shown that people with red-green
colorblindness can discriminate between some colors that normal people
can't (these appear "khaki" to us:
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051205/full/051205-1.html).

One more aside: many animals are also adept at sensing not just the
color of light but also whether or not the light is polarized.  I can
personally attest to the fact that humans, too, are capable of seeing
polarized light, but it takes a few minutes of practice to get the
hang of it(search for "Haidinger's brush" for more info).

Also, we don't know, and probably never will know, does one person see
colours the same as another?
For example, you could see grass as green, but someone else could see
grass as pink (or rather what you see as pink) but because you've
always been told that this 'green' (pink) is called green, you will
call it that when you see the colour of grass.

WOW! edejl, i had never thought of that before. Interesting idea!

I think you're right that this does happen, edejl (though not to the
extent of green to pink!) - there are some shades that my wife and I
see differently, mostly around the blue/green border or the
pink/orange one.

I don't think it's so much a matter of linguistic confusion (you've
always been told this colour is blue so you think that's what "blue"
means) as it is of perception. We get enough examples of each
different colour to have a good understanding, and it will be more or
less the same as everyone else's. But some objects that are near a
colour boundary could appear differently to different people.

Normally an object is reflecting several different colours that mix
together to form the colour we see; the colour that gets to your brain
is going to depend on how well your eyes detect each component, and
that could well differ from one person to another.

Quite right, Manuka.  From what I have read, there are two slightly
different genes for red vision, whereby males can only have one type
but females can have one and/or the other; thus women may see red (and
related hues) differently from individual men and maybe more
intensely.  Furthermore, it has been discovered that a few females
have a forth type of sight nerve that is sensitive to yellow.
(Sorry, I can't give sources.)
A girl who went to Oxford University once told me that Oxford Blue is
the color labeled "teal green" on an(the?) English list of colors that
predates computers.

Incidentally, the wierd thing is that not colors but wave lengths
enter our eye, and our nerves and brain interpret the result as
colors.
Cheers, Myoarin

In regard to edejl's comment: while perhaps theoretically possible, I
think we would have found out if this were actually happening in
reality.
   A person who saw grass as pink would have a differently ordered
spectrum in their mind and thus would have incongruous ideas about
things like similar colors.
   For instance, they would say that green (our pink) is similar to
red, which wouldn't make sense.
   Right?

   Have a good day.

No, I think some of you have misunderstood or not realised to the full
extent; it is a widely recognised biological...wonderment.
You can never know, at least today, because there is no way of
describing colour if all your colours are different. If you say its
quite dark, then you could have been told what dark is. I'm finding it
hard to explain. If their green is our pink then their red will not be
similar to green (pink) because their red will be different as well.

Hello again.
I do understand what you were saying and agree that we will never
"know for sure" that this is not the case.
My example was just meant to illustrate that there's no substantial
reason to believe this is actually happening. For example, we could be
living in "The Matrix" but would you actually want to base your life
on this belief?
Also, as to "dark" I would argue that we can base colors on this
concept. If I put you in a lightless room and say to you that what you
are sensing (well, actually not sensing) is "dark" and then ask you to
name 5 colors which you find similar to dark I would expect answers
such as navy, dark purple, etc. If you answered yellow I would be
suspicious.

Have a good day.

Being "color blind" not that bad since one is still seeing the most
important dimension of color: value.   A B&W movie is all value.   Add
"hue" and "saturation" and you have a movie in color.   Add value to
red and you have pink.   Same hue but different value.   In 1969
psychologist Max Lusher developed a color test to measure personality
differences.   Popular book with folks wandering around asking friends
to place colors in order of preference.   Guess what, worked just as
well with the color blind.   Kids like high values and older folks
like lower valued colors.   Value is where its at.   But would miss
the rest.