Mantis shrimp's vision of only 12 basic colours allows it to act fast. Humans see complex colours - conducive to more deliberative decisions.
George ILIEV
As scientific trivia go, it is well known that the mantis shrimp has 12 receptors for colour in its eyes (including several in the ultraviolet spectrum), while humans and honey bees only have three and dogs have two. I used to envy this 30-cm crustacean for the myriad of colour combinations that it could potentially see. However,
recent research published in the journal Science shows that the shrimp cannot see myriads of colours. Not even a hundred colours. All it can see is 12 colours, while all the variations between the 12 colours are lost on it.
Managers and CEOs are sometimes accused of being two-dimensional: of seeing things as black and white. That's an overstatement. However, even seeing in 12 finite ways would be a gross oversimplification of the world around us.
Why does the shrimp need 12 receptors? They probably evolved as a shortcut giving the shrimp a speed advantage. It is a lightning-fast predator, so
by sacrificing accurate colour definition, it gained a quick way of detecting basic colours and creating a simplified image of the world. Using direct chemical/neural signals from the receptors is faster than adding the extra stage of brain simulation - as the human brain does e.g. when simulating the perception of purple from mixing red and blue. Thus the shrimp can rapidly detect prey or other predators in the coral reefs while saving the little brainpower that it has.
Shrimp vision versus human vision is exactly the same dichotomy as laid out by Nobel Prize-winning economist
Daniel Kahneman in "Thinking, Fast and Slow". The shrimp deploys a fast and instinctive system while humans resort to slower and more deliberative brain simulations, which capture the world in its complexity. The lesson from all this: if it is not about shattering crab shells, better spend some time poring over your important decisions.
