Summarize the Young–Helmholtz theory of color vision.
Helmholtz carried out his work on vision at the Universities of Bonn, Konigsberg and Heidelberg and published his results in the Handbook of Physiological Optics. Another well-known physiologist, Thomas Young, also postulated a theory of color vision that was very similar to Helmholtz’s work. Thus, Helmholtz modified Young’s theory and presented it with experimental evidence by collectively known as Young-Helmholtz theory of color vision. This theory was also known as the trichromatic theory.
Helmholtz’s approach was to expand Muller’s doctrine of specific nerve energies by postulating three different types of color receptors that are present on the retina. Helmholtz also suggested that vision of color has three different receptors that containing its own specific energy. It was specifically known that various combinations of three different colors such as red, green and blue-violet produce all other colors.
According to Young-Helmholtz theory of color vision, he propounded that there are three different types of color receptors that corresponds to the three different types of primary colors. If a red light is present, the red receptors are stimulated that causes red sensation in the retina; if a green light is present, the green receptors are stimulated that causes green sensation in the retina and so on. If all these combinations of colors are present, then it causes white sensation in the retina.