Since, Hering working on the problem of space perception for about 10 years, he specifically turned to the concept of color vision that was known as Hering’s theory of color vision. He observed that certain parts of the color that mixed together give the gray type of sensation. He also observed that a person looks at red color gives the sensation of a green image whereas the person looks at blue color gives the sensation of a yellow image.
According to Hering’s theory of color vision, there is presence of three different types of sense receptors that could respond in two different ways such as one type of receptor responds to red-green, one another type of receptor responds to yellow-blue and so on. Red, yellow and white results in a catabolic process or “tearing down” for their respective receptors whereas green, blue and black results in an anabolic process or “building up” for their respective receptors.
If both colors that pertain to the sensitivity of the receptor are experienced, then the catabolic and anabolic processes are cancelled out and majorly resulted in the gray sensation. If one color that sustains the sensitivity of the receptor is experienced, then it produces an afterimage by leaving its opposite ends.