Abstract

We trained horses to different colour combinations in a two-choice behavioural experiment and tested their responses to the training and test colours. The horses chose colours according to their similarity/relationship to rewarded and unrewarded training colours. There was no evidence for a categorical boundary at the neutral point or elsewhere. This study suggests that dichromats perceive their chromatic space as a continuous scale of colours, treating the colour at the neutral point as any other colour they can distinguish.

Keywords

colour vision; dichromat; horse; mammal; chromatic space

Published in

Journal of Experimental Biology
2007, volume: 210, number: 16, pages: 2795-2800
Publisher: COMPANY OF BIOLOGISTS LTD

Authors' information