‘I’m really just high on life and beauty’: the woman who can see 100 million colours

[Still Waters]

It would be easy to look at the vivid array of colour contained in the paintings of artist Concetta Antico and assume she is using artistic licence. The trunks of her eucalyptus trees are hued with violet and mauve; the yellow crest on her cockatoo has hints of green and blue; the hypercolour of a garden landscape looks almost psychedelic.

“It’s not just an affectation and it’s not artistic licence,” says Antico. “I’m actually painting exactly what I see. If it’s a pink flower and then all of a sudden you see a bit of lilac or blue, I actually saw that.”

Antico is a tetrachromat, which means she has a fourth colour receptor in her retina compared with the standard three which most people have. While those of us with three of these receptors – called cone cells – have the ability to distinguish around one million different colours, tetrachromats see an estimated 100 million.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/30/im-really-just-high-on-life-and-beauty-the-woman-who-can-see-100-million-colours

[pallidin]

Wow! I wonder how many colors a high-end digital camera can 'see'

[Tatetopa]

It is very cool, some other people do have that ability. I think fairy shrimp also have 4 color receptors in their eyes.

[HSlim]

That's pretty cool. Most of us have to pay for that kind of experience.

[Jon the frog]

''I always felt like I was living in a very magical world'' It's her world so it's just normality, our world is probably more magical for her...the same apply for us. My younger son is partially colorblind, our world is not the same too for him. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Jon the frog

[Jon the frog]

16 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

It is very cool, some other people do have that ability. I think fairy shrimp also have 4 color receptors in their eyes.

Mantis shrimp have 12 different color receptors, some say 16.

[Seti42]

Tetrachromatic vision vs trichromatic vision would be a very subtle difference. Not at all like the vast difference between dichromatic and trichromatic.
Still cool though. As an artist myself, I have always devoted more brain power than most to visual perception. Don't think I'm a tetrachrome, though.

[L.A.T.1961]

2 hours ago, pallidin said:

Wow! I wonder how many colors a high-end digital camera can 'see'

More than the 10 million colors for a human eye. Even 8 bit cameras can record, via RGB filters, more than 16 million different colors. 

[jethrofloyd]

Just imagine to see a world like a kaleidoscope.

 

 

[Eldorado]

How many colours are there?

[pallidin]

3 hours ago, Eldorado said:

How many colours are there?

Good question, so I looked it up:

"It has been determined by people who determine such things that there are somewhere around 18 decillion varieties of colors available for your viewing enjoyment.

That’s an 18 followed by 33 zeros."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.azcentral.com/amp/77311176

Edited February 1, 2022 by pallidin

[Freez1]

I bet her paintings are incredible. One day worth a mint. My nephew is color blind but his pencil sketches are out of this world. His ability to see fine detail in just all the different shades is on another level.

[jethrofloyd]

 

[the13bats]

So really her art work can only be truly appreciated by peiole like her or people on acid.

[saywhat]

10 hours ago, Jon the frog said:

Mantis shrimp have 12 different color receptors, some say 16.

True story.

[godnodog]

If I am not mistaken this documentary is several years old or its similar to one I've seen some years ago.

In it they showed how color perception affects human vocabulary, they show the curious case of an african tribe with words green and brown, where they do a westerners vs them and colour differentiation of green and brown tests.

Also the colour blue and green in western civilization.

[+and-then]

12 hours ago, HSlim said:

That's pretty cool. Most of us have to pay for that kind of experience.

Right?  She only sees the colors.  Wait til she gets to smell or hear them 

[fred_mc]

21 hours ago, godnodog said:

If I am not mistaken this documentary is several years old or its similar to one I've seen some years ago.

In it they showed how color perception affects human vocabulary, they show the curious case of an african tribe with words green and brown, where they do a westerners vs them and colour differentiation of green and brown tests.

Also the colour blue and green in western civilization.

Yes, the himba tribe, they see colours quite differently due to using different words, they can easily see different nuances of green that we can't but struggle to differ between green and blue, interesting: https://gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-see-colour

It's also interesting that words for colours often come in the same order when languages develop. The colour blue often comes late. That is why Homer describes the sea as wine dark in the Iliad and the Odyssey, there was no word for blue yet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine-dark_sea_(Homer) . Other ancient texts, such as the Veda texts and texts in the Bible, also have an absence of the colour blue leading to that honey is green, oxens and horses are red, the sea is purple etc.

[qxcontinuum]

I am tetrachromat too, just performed this test 

I see 39 nuances of colors 

[Jon the frog]

5 hours ago, qxcontinuum said:

I am tetrachromat too, just performed this test 

I see 39 nuances of colors 

I see more than 40... don't think your test is valid.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Jon the frog

[L.A.T.1961]

3 hours ago, Jon the frog said:

I see more than 40... don't think your test is valid.

One problem with any internet test is how well the screen is set up and settings used.

The same person could get different results by viewing the same test on different computer/screen combinations.  

[qxcontinuum]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/kfor.com/news/test-how-many-colors-you-see-can-determine-how-many-color-receptors-you-have/amp/

[qxcontinuum]

7 hours ago, L.A.T.1961 said:

One problem with any internet test is how well the screen is set up and settings used.

The same person could get different results by viewing the same test on different computer/screen combinations.  

even when you go to perform this type of tests in a specialized place, they'll still ask you to stare an older crappy computer and count those colourful lines . 

[Scholar4Truth]

At least she clarified what she meant, otherwise I would of thought she was on an LSD trip.