If you've ever wished you could see the world though the eyes of another animal, we have good news for you. We also wondered about that and, being scientists who specialize in color vision, have created a solution: a camera system and software package that allows you to record videos in animal-view colors.
The key thing for me is whether all color distinctions visible to the animals are made visible to us by the simulations. Wavelength shifting can do that as long as the animals are trichromats. If they’re tetrachromats, it’s impossible in theory even with color shifting.
What you’re saying is for sure true, but even if the wavelengths were a complete match we can’t know if they’re represented to the animals the same way they are to us. It could be something wildly different. If you think of trying to explain what colors are to someone who was blind from birth, it could be that same level of difference between us an animals - something impossible to envision.
That’s kind of the philosophical issue of qualia: we don’t know if I experience red the same way you do, even if our eyes are physiologically identical. The most we can say is that my red maps onto yours in a way that preserves distinctions of meaning, and I think that’s all they’re trying to do with these cameras.
I agree that’s what they’re trying to do, but the headline is a bit misleading. Even the people making the system aren’t saying this is what it looks like to the animals.