A unique genetic mutation and a well-wired brain mean that Concetta Antico is like no other artist on Earth.
When Concetta Antico looks at a leaf, she sees much more than just green. “Around the edge I’ll see orange or red or purple in the shadow; you might see dark green but I’ll see violet, turquoise, blue,” she said. “It’s like a mosaic of color.”
Antico doesn’t just perceive these colors because she’s an artist who paints in the impressionist style. She’s also a tetrachromat, which means that she has more receptors in her eyes to absorb color. The difference lies in Antico’s cones, structures in the eyes that are calibrated to absorb particular wavelengths of light and transmit them to the brain. The average person has three cones, which enables him to see about one million colors.
For years, researchers weren’t sure tetrachromacy existed. If it did, they stipulated, it could only be found in people with two X chromosomes. This is because of the genes behind color vision. People who have regular color vision have three cones, tuned to the wavelengths of red, green, and blue. These are connected to the X chromosome—have only one, but most women have two.
Based on Antico’s genes, Jameson has determined that Antico’s fourth cone absorbs wavelengths that are “reddish-orangey-yellow, but what it appears to Concetta is uncertain at the moment,” she added. Since the tests aren’t calibrated for this wavelength, empirically demonstrating tetrachromacy is still really difficult.Jameson and Winkler are on the hunt for more tetrachromats in order to better understand how their brains work.
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