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People who love purple might be surprised to discover that the color doesn’t actually exist. A recent study shows that the human brain is responsible for creating the perception of purple.
Researchers found that the brain gets confused when it processes red and blue light wavelengths together. These two colors are located at opposite ends of the visible light spectrum, which causes this confusion.
To compensate for this, the brain bends the spectrum into a circle, joining blue and red to make purple.
While we can perceive the color purple, it is essentially a result of the brain’s attempt to make sense of conflicting signals from different light wavelengths.
The helpful acronym ROYGBIV is used to describe all the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.
These ‘spectral’ colors make up the visible light spectrum, and each one has its own specific wavelength of light.
Purple is not included in this list, even though the term ‘violet’ is typically associated with the color purple.
In this case, violet refers to the shortest wavelengths of light on the spectrum, including the UV rays that cause sunburn.
The ‘spectral’ colors, or the colors of the rainbow, are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Purple is a non spectral color, which means it only exists inside our minds
When light enters your eyes, it hits special cells called cones.
These cones help you see color, and there are three types: one for short wavelengths (S cones, which detect blues and violets), one for medium wavelengths (M cones, which detect greens and yellows), and one for long wavelengths (L cones, which detect reds and oranges).
Each type of cone responds to a different part of the visible light spectrum.
When a certain color of light hits the eye, the matching cones are activated.
The special cells then send signals through the optic nerve to the brain.
First, the thalamus, which processes your body’s senses, receives the signals and starts the process of figuring out what you’re seeing.
Then the signals go to the visual cortex, where the brain analyzes which cones were triggered and how strongly.
Your brain uses this information to figure out the exact color.
Purple results from the brain trying to resolve confusion between two opposite wavelengths of light: red and blue/violet
If the light falls between two colors—like between blue and green—it can activate both S and M cones.
The brain compares how much each cone is activated to determine the final color.
This system allows us to see not just basic colors, but also blends and shades in between, like teal or turquoise.
Altogether, our eyes and brain can recognize over a million different colors.
When the eyes see red and violet wavelengths at the same time, the brain bends the visible light spectrum into a circle, resulting in the color purple
One would think the brain processes purple the same way. After all, isn’t it just a mixture of red and blue wavelengths?
It is, but because red and blue are at opposite ends of the visible light spectrum, they shouldn’t be able to blend together to form a new color, at least according to our brains.
As a result, the brain gets tripped up when both S cones (blue/violet light) and L cones (red light) are activated.
To overcome this confusion, the brain actually bends the visible light spectrum into a circle so that red and blue/violet can meet, resulting in purple.
Thus, our brains convince us we’re seeing a color that doesn’t actually exist.
Despite this fact, the color purple plays an important role in human society, signifying royalty, luxury, mystery, magic and more.
So, if purple is your favorite color, say a thank you to your brain for conjuring it up for you.
