Color from invisible patterns.
Human pattern resolution is limited by optical blurring as well as neural filtering by a cascade of retinal and cortical sites with progressively lower resolution limits. Curiously, pattern structure can influence perceived color: a high-contrast, monochromatic (single wavelength) pattern appears desaturated (closer to white) relative to a uniform field of the same wavelength. Here we show that this desaturation is evident even when the pattern's frequency is too high for conscious perception, implicating a nonlinear process--namely light adaptation--at the level of single cone photoreceptors. We propose a neural mechanism in which fast, involuntary eye movements serve to shift control over perception between two competing cone populations, each operating at different levels of adaptation.
Shady
Sherif
S
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0109, La Jolla, California 92037, USA. sherif@psy.ucsd.edu
MacLeod
Donald I A
DI
D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D017949:Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors