Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Is it true that dogs can only see black and white? That assumption turned out to be just a myth.
In fact, dogs are not color blind, but their ability to see color is limited, says Associate Professor of Small Animal Science at Penn State University, Nancy Dreschel, as quoted by The Conversation. This is because the animals that are often human’s best friends lack some light receptors in their eyes.
Because they lack light receptors, they cannot see certain colors, especially red and green.
What humans see as red or orange, to a dog may be brown or beige.
Animals can’t use spoken language to describe what they see, but researchers found a way to tell how dogs perceive color.
The researchers trained the dogs to touch the illuminated colored discs with their noses to earn rewards. Then they trained the dogs to touch discs that were a different color from the others.
While trained dogs can’t tell which disc to press, scientists know they can’t see the color difference. This experiment showed that dogs can only see yellow and blue.
Keep in mind, the human retina contains three types of special cone-shaped cells that allow us to see various colors.
When scientists used a technique called electroretinography to measure how dogs’ eyes react to light, they found that dogs had fewer of this type of cone cells. Dogs have only two types of cone receptors, while humans have three.
However, dogs’ eyesight is much better than humans at night. The retinal center in the dog’s eye has more light-sensitive cells, which perform better in dim light than the color-detecting cones.
(hsy/hsy)
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