Scotopic hue percepts in natural scenes.

Traditional trichromatic theories of color vision conclude that color perception is not possible under scotopic illumination in which only one type of photoreceptor, rods, is active. The current study demonstrates the existence of scotopic color perception and indicates that perceived hue is influenced by spatial context and top-down processes of color perception. Experiment 1 required observers to report the perceived hue in various natural scene images under purely rod-mediated vision. The results showed that when the test patch had low variation in the luminance distribution and was a decrement in luminance compared to the surrounding area, reddish or orangish percepts were more likely to be reported compared to all other percepts. In contrast, when the test patch had a high variation and was an increment in luminance, the probability of perceiving blue, green, or yellow hues increased. In addition, when observers had a strong, but singular, daylight hue association for the test patch, color percepts were reported more often and hues appeared more saturated compared to patches with no daylight hue association. This suggests that experience in daylight conditions modulates the bottom-up processing for rod-mediated color perception. In Experiment 2, observers reported changes in hue percepts for a test ring surrounded by inducing rings that varied in spatial context. In sum, the results challenge the classic view that rod vision is achromatic and suggest that scotopic hue perception is mediated by cortical mechanisms.

[1]  R. Osborne.  The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and Their Applications to the Arts by M.E. Chevreul (review) , 2017 .

[2]  V. Billock,et al.  Seeing forbidden colors. , 2010, Scientific American.

[3]  Jonathon Shlens,et al.  High sensitivity rod photoreceptor input to the blue-yellow color opponent pathway in macaque retina , 2009, Nature Neuroscience.

[4]  Barton L. Anderson,et al.  The Role of Layered Scene Representations in Color Appearance , 2009, Current Biology.

[5]  Karl R Gegenfurtner,et al.  Color appearance of familiar objects: effects of object shape, texture, and illumination changes. , 2008, Journal of vision.

[6]  S. Shevell,et al.  Color in complex scenes. , 2008, Annual review of psychology.

[7]  Joel Pokorny,et al.  Rod contributions to color perception: Linear with rod contrast , 2007, Vision Research.

[8]  K. Gegenfurtner,et al.  Memory modulates color appearance , 2006, Nature Neuroscience.

[9]  Andrew J. Zele,et al.  The color of night: Surface color perception under dim illuminations , 2006, Visual Neuroscience.

[10]  J. L. Schnapf,et al.  Gap-Junctional Coupling and Absolute Sensitivity of Photoreceptors in Macaque Retina , 2005, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[11]  Frederick A A Kingdom,et al.  Spatiochromatic statistics of natural scenes: first- and second-order information and their correlational structure. , 2005, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[12]  David Williams,et al.  Different sensations from cones with the same photopigment. , 2005, Journal of vision.

[13]  Andriana Olmos,et al.  A biologically inspired algorithm for the recovery of shading and reflectance images , 2004 .

[14]  S. Shioiri,et al.  Change of Color Appearance in Photopic, Mesopic and Scotopic Vision , 2004 .

[15]  Joel Pokorny,et al.  Matching rod percepts with cone stimuli , 2004, Vision Research.

[16]  S. Shevell,et al.  Changes in color appearance caused by perceptual grouping , 2004, Visual Neuroscience.

[17]  Vicki J. Volbrecht,et al.  The Influence of Rods on Colour Naming During Dark Adaptation , 2003 .

[18]  Ione Fine,et al.  Surface segmentation based on the luminance and color statistics of natural scenes , 2002 .

[19]  T. Ishida.  Color identification data obtained from photopic to mesopic illuminance levels , 2002 .

[20]  V A Billock,et al.  Perception of forbidden colors in retinally stabilized equiluminant images: an indication of softwired cortical color opponency? , 2001, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[21]  J. Yellott,et al.  Every discrete, finite image is uniquely determined by its dipole histogram , 2000, Vision Research.

[22]  S. Shevell,et al.  Role of perceptual organization in chromatic induction. , 2000, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[23]  Lindsay T. Sharpe,et al.  Rod pathways: the importance of seeing nothing , 1999, Trends in Neurosciences.

[24]  Nicola Schneider,et al.  Color and lightness constancy in different perceptual tasks , 1998, Biological Cybernetics.

[25]  G. Fowler,et al.  Rod influence on hue-scaling functions , 1998, Vision Research.

[26]  Steven K Shevell,et al.  Chromatic induction: border contrast or adaptation to surrounding light? , 1998, Vision Research.

[27]  Joel Pokorny,et al.  Rod inputs to macaque ganglion cells , 1997, Vision Research.

[28]  Elaine W. Jin,et al.  Color memory and color constancy. , 1996, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[29]  Steven K. Shevell,et al.  Color appearance with sparse chromatic context , 1995, Vision Research.

[30]  M. Banks,et al.  Scotopic visual efficiency: Constraints by optics, receptor properties, and rod pooling , 1992, Vision Research.

[31]  R. Shapley,et al.  Background light and the contrast gain of primate P and M retinal ganglion cells. , 1988, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[32]  Israel Abramov,et al.  Scaling Procedures for Specifying Color Appearance , 1988, Topical Meeting on Color Appearance.

[33]  HEWITT D. CRANE,et al.  On Seeing Reddish Green and Yellowish Blue , 1983, Science.

[34]  W. Cowan,et al.  Changes in perceived color due to chromatic interactions , 1982, Vision Research.

[35]  D. Hood,et al.  Interactions between rod and cone channels above threshold: A test of various models , 1982, Vision Research.

[36]  M. Ikeda,et al.  Mesopic luminous-efficiency functions. , 1981, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[37]  Bjørn Stabell,et al.  Effects of rod activity on color threshold , 1976, Vision Research.

[38]  B Julesz,et al.  Inability of Humans to Discriminate between Visual Textures That Agree in Second-Order Statistics—Revisited , 1973, Perception.

[39]  M. Chevreul,et al.  The principles of harmony and contrast of colours, and their applications to the arts : including painting, interior decoration, tapestries, carpets, mosaics, coloured glazing, paper-staining, calico-printing, letterpress printing, map-colouring, dress, landscape and flower gardening, etc. , 1969 .

[40]  W. R. Brown,et al.  The influence of luminance level on visual sensitivity to color differences. , 1951, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[41]  S. Hecht,et al.  The colors of natural objects and terrains, and their relation to visual color deficiency. , 1949, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[42]  G Wald,et al.  HUMAN VISION AND THE SPECTRUM. , 1945, Science.

[43]  J. A. Harlow,et al.  Measurements of chromatic sensitivity in the mesopic range , 2001 .

[44]  G. J. Burton,et al.  Color and spatial structure in natural scenes. , 1987, Applied optics.

[45]  H. Helmholtz.  Helmholtz's Treatise on Physiological Optics , 1963 .

[46]  C. J. Bartleson.  Memory colors of familiar objects. , 1960, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[47]  S. M. Newhall,et al.  Comparison of Successive with Simultaneous Color Matching , 1957 .

[48]  S. Buck.  The Interaction of Rod and Cone Signals: Pathways and Psychophysics Rod-cone Interaction Mesopic Vision Color Vision Rod Hue Biases Chromatic Discrimination Spatial Sensitivity Temporal Sensitivity Retinal Processing Cortical Processing , 2022 .