The Science of Color Perception: How Your Brain Creates Color

🎯 Reality Check: Solid 💪

📝 Why: Ok, this sounds wild but it’s mostly true! In physics, “colour” doesn’t exist as a property of objects. Objects reflect certain wavelengths of light (electromagnetic radiation) — but “colour” as we see it is actually just how our brains interpret these wavelengths. As Professor Beau Lotto puts it, “Colour is not ‘in’ the world but ‘made’ by the brain.” The science is clear: light exists, but colour is a mental experience.

🔗 Source: Lotto, B., “Why We See What We Do: An Empirical Theory of Vision"; Hill & Spence, “Colour Vision: From genes to perception”, Science, 2002; BBC Science Focus Magazine; The Royal Society.