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Brightness is not related to colours, and while colours are "relative" in the sense that colour perception is influenced by context, it's still the case that yo

Brightness is not related to colours, and while colours are "relative" in the sense that colour perception is influenced by context, it's still the case that you can accurately identify lots of colours in an absolute sense, given a specific context.

jacobolus 5y ago
You can also accurately identify a lot of sounds, given a specific context. But if you had to identify colors with the same precision that you expect someone to identify pitches to be considered to have "perfect pitch", it would be very difficult for almost everyone. If you took random chips from the Farnsworth–Munsell 100 hue test, one at a time, and had to give the correct numerical code for each hue, you would not be able to do it. (Which is why the test itself only requires that people put the hues in order when comparing them side by side, not identify each one absolutely.)
- Grustaf 5y ago
  I mean you can easily identify 5-10 absolute colour frequencies, but how many can identify even a single absolute tone? Ordering things in relative order isn't very relevant to this discussion I think, since the point was about the difficulty in detecting absolute sound frequencies. And of course, anyone can put all the notes on a piano in relative order.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    Identifying 5-10 absolute colors is similar in difficulty to being able to identify whether a note is bass, baritone, tenor or soprano. Which anybody who knows what those 4 words mean would be able to do. Except for border or overlapping notes of course. Giving them one of those would be like expecting cyan to be consistently labelled as blue or green.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      "bass, baritone, tenor or soprano", that's only four categories, that's much less than 10. And I would guess that timbre will play in here as well, since the human voice is pretty restricted. A bass is not just a frequency shifted soprano. Play a note and ask someone to reproduce it after ten seconds or so. How close would people come? Then show them a card with a certain pure colour and then ask them to reproduce that with a hue slider. Don't you think people would come much closer with the colours? Don't confuse language and perception, we are not talking about labels such as "cyan" here, that's not directly relevant.
      - watwut 5y ago
        People will fail the pure color test and that is all there is to it. They will know it was light blue, but won't be able to choose correct light blue. Nad they will sux even more with mixed non-primary colors. Reproducing visual properties is much harder then you think.
        Grustaf 5y ago
        There is no "fail", it's just a matter of how many colours one can distinguish, vs how many absolute tone frequencies.
        watwut 5y ago
        Infinite amount of both. But there is also issue of remembering which is not as easy as people assume and of comparing. And of light conditions and context affecting your perception. And so on.
        Grustaf 5y ago
        Infinite? Not at all, we’re talking about identifying absolute frequencies here, not just telling them apart. For sound I’d say it’s less than five, for colour perhaps a dozen.
      - 5y ago

jacobolus 5y ago

You can also accurately identify a lot of sounds, given a specific context. But if you had to identify colors with the same precision that you expect someone to identify pitches to be considered to have "perfect pitch", it would be very difficult for almost everyone. If you took random chips from the Farnsworth–Munsell 100 hue test, one at a time, and had to give the correct numerical code for each hue, you would not be able to do it. (Which is why the test itself only requires that people put the hues in order when comparing them side by side, not identify each one absolutely.)

Grustaf 5y ago
I mean you can easily identify 5-10 absolute colour frequencies, but how many can identify even a single absolute tone? Ordering things in relative order isn't very relevant to this discussion I think, since the point was about the difficulty in detecting absolute sound frequencies. And of course, anyone can put all the notes on a piano in relative order.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  Identifying 5-10 absolute colors is similar in difficulty to being able to identify whether a note is bass, baritone, tenor or soprano. Which anybody who knows what those 4 words mean would be able to do. Except for border or overlapping notes of course. Giving them one of those would be like expecting cyan to be consistently labelled as blue or green.
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    "bass, baritone, tenor or soprano", that's only four categories, that's much less than 10. And I would guess that timbre will play in here as well, since the human voice is pretty restricted. A bass is not just a frequency shifted soprano. Play a note and ask someone to reproduce it after ten seconds or so. How close would people come? Then show them a card with a certain pure colour and then ask them to reproduce that with a hue slider. Don't you think people would come much closer with the colours? Don't confuse language and perception, we are not talking about labels such as "cyan" here, that's not directly relevant.
    - watwut 5y ago
      People will fail the pure color test and that is all there is to it. They will know it was light blue, but won't be able to choose correct light blue. Nad they will sux even more with mixed non-primary colors. Reproducing visual properties is much harder then you think.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        There is no "fail", it's just a matter of how many colours one can distinguish, vs how many absolute tone frequencies.
        watwut 5y ago
        Infinite amount of both. But there is also issue of remembering which is not as easy as people assume and of comparing. And of light conditions and context affecting your perception. And so on.
        Grustaf 5y ago
        Infinite? Not at all, we’re talking about identifying absolute frequencies here, not just telling them apart. For sound I’d say it’s less than five, for colour perhaps a dozen.
    - 5y ago