Scientists have just dropped an incredibly thrilling surprise announcement! Explore their journey to find a new virtual color named “olo,” one beyond any level of saturation found in real life. Turns out that strong blue-green color was discovered in research led by Professor Ren Ng and his team. Their results are outlined in a paper published in the journal Science Advances. This discovery will enhance our understanding of the role human colour perception plays.
Beyond its potential, Olo is not a new wavelength of light but a new approach to experiencing light. The M cones in the human eye respond to wavelengths in the green part of the visible spectrum. By only stimulating these three cones we experience color in a very specific way. S cones are specialized for detecting short wavelengths, while L cones are maximally responsive to longer wavelengths. M cones are tasked with detecting medium wavelengths. This targeted stimulation allows for the experience of olo, a color that cannot be detected by the visible spectrum. Only the five people they’ve allowed access to the beta can see it.
The research team has defined olo as a blue-green colour of “unprecedented saturation. Professor Ng explained that the visual experience of olo was something you could usually only dream of.
“We name this new color ‘olo’. Subjects report that olo in our prototype system appears blue-green of unprecedented saturation, when viewed relative to a neutral grey background.” – Anonymous (from the paper)
The rarity of this colour arises from a special perceptional mechanism. John Barbur, a veteran vision scientist, helped us understand the kind of conditions you need to be able to experience olo. He further detailed that it takes a very saturated green generated only by objects with a full red-green chromatic mechanism and only stimuli from M cones.
Even in its partial invisibility, the discovery of olo has major implications for how humans understand and interact with colour. Professor Ng couldn’t help but feel excited and intrigued by the implications of their findings.
“We predicted from the beginning that it would look like an unprecedented colour signal but we didn’t know what the brain would do with it,” – Professor Ren Ng
For everyone that’s experienced olo, the experience has been nothing short of transformative.
“It was jaw-dropping. It’s incredibly saturated.” – Professor Ren Ng
This finding is not just about aesthetic appeal. Beyond that, it could shed new light on the nature of human vision and our ability to perceive the world around us. Olo serves as a reminder that there is still much to learn about human perception and the limits of colour recognition.
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