Visual mechanisms that signal the direction of color changes

Evidence is presented for a visual capacity specialized to sense the chromatic direction of change in colors over time. Discrimination thresholds were measured between pairs of suprathreshold color changes presented in consecutive intervals. In one interval, the color of a spatially uniform disk was changed at a constant speed along the circumference of a circle in an equiluminant color plane. In the other, an instantaneous change, which can be described as a vector in the equiluminant plane, was added to the circular color modulation. Averaging across conditions showed that the threshold for discriminating between a pair of purely temporal color changes was approximately proportional to the cosine of the color angle between them. The model that is presented to account for these results is based on parallel directional-color mechanisms that are tuned to different directions in color-space and are responsive to change in one color direction but not its opposite.

[1]  S. Anstis,et al.  Visual Adaptation to Gradual Change of Intensity , 1967, Science.

[2]  D. W. Heeley,et al.  Cardinal directions of color space , 1982, Vision Research.

[3]  Ernst Snapper,et al.  Metric affine geometry , 1973 .

[4]  Forrest L. Dimmick,et al.  The effect of the exposure time upon the R. L. of visible motion , 1930 .

[5]  J. Grunwald.  Effect of timolol maleate on the retinal circulation of human eyes with ocular hypertension. , 1990, Investigative ophthalmology & visual science.

[6]  E. Schrödinger.  Grundlinien einer Theorie der Farbenmetrik im Tagessehen , 1920 .

[7]  D. Stork,et al.  The Physics and Chemistry of Color: The Fifteen Causes of Color , 1983 .

[8]  A. Pantle,et al.  Temporal frequency response characteristic of motion channels measured with three different psychophysical techniques , 1978, Perception & psychophysics.

[9]  K. J. Craik.  The effect of adaptation on differential brightness discrimination , 1938, The Journal of physiology.

[10]  R. Kinchla,et al.  A theory of visual movement perception. , 1969, Psychological review.

[11]  H. L. Resnikoff.  Differential geometry and color perception , 1974 .

[12]  Qasim Zaidi,et al.  The effect of adaptation on the differential sensitivity of the S-cone color system , 1992, Vision Research.

[13]  J. Austin,et al.  Sense and Sensibilia , 1963 .

[14]  Q. Zaidi,et al.  Chromatic Mechanisms Beyond Linear Opponency , 1991 .

[15]  Angela M. Brown,et al.  Higher order color mechanisms , 1986, Vision Research.

[16]  W L Sachtler,et al.  Chromatic and luminance signals in visual memory. , 1992, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics and image science.

[17]  Induced desensitization , 1986, Vision Research.

[18]  R. Sekuler,et al.  Aftereffect of Seen Motion with a Stabilized Retinal Image , 1963, Science.

[19]  James Clerk Maxwell,et al.  On the theory of compound colours, and the relations of the colours of the spectrum , 1860, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

[20]  R. M. Boynton,et al.  Chromaticity diagram showing cone excitation by stimuli of equal luminance. , 1979, Journal of the Optical Society of America.

[21]  J. Pokorny,et al.  Spectral sensitivity of the foveal cone photopigments between 400 and 500 nm , 1975, Vision Research.

[22]  R. M. Boynton.  Human color vision , 1979 .

[23]  Q. Zaidi.  Parallel and Serial Connections Between Human Color Mechanisms , 1992 .