We have all ever thought that dogs come in black and white. However, it is not so. And not only that, but they look at the world in a different way –the human would say, something cloudy and distorted–. However, the vision of dogs leaves us to reflect on two important issues: on the one hand, that, indeed, there are different worlds for each pair of eyes (and for each mind)and on the other, the possibility that the world is not as we humans have codified it eitheruntil today –and in this sense, what eyes would have the truth?–
It has already been proven by science that dogs can perceive beyond black and white. Our companions actually have a dichromatic vision. That is, they are capable of perceiving two primary colors, and not three, like us.
canine vision
human vision
They are missing one of the cone-shaped cell layers we have in our eyes—the color receptors—so they perceive a different color spectrum. Dogs do not see well the shades between red and green, which see gray, something similar to what color blind people suffer, without coming from a genetic disease. Therefore, if you throw a red ball at your dog and it falls into a bush of green plants, it is possible that he will become disoriented and can only find it by smell.
Dogs also have less visual acuity than us. (between 4 and 8 times smaller), and it is even believed that it is worse than that of wolves. Of course, they make up for that with their unbeatable night vision and with a motion detector capable of identifying patterns, as verified by a study from 2013.
So the vision of our dogs has its pros and its cons. In fact, they are able to recognize another dog on television, according to the study of Animal Cognitionsomething that speaks of the fact that their visual capacity is related to a particular cognition and to a neuronal functioning that makes them especially intelligent animals.
But, How do dogs see the world?
His vision is, hypothetically, like that of a person who is color blind and has cataracts. To exemplify it, the site Wolfram Alpha created an interesting platform that allows us to know how our dog sees the worldmodifying various photos and comparing them with our own capacity to give us a clearer idea.
We can’t know what it’s like to be in their fur, but this simulator shares our peers’ perception of reality. Some examples:
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