Independent orientation-selective mechanisms for the cardinal directions of colour space.

Simultaneous, oppositely tilted, aftereffects were obtained for pairs of equiluminant gratings (e.g. magenta/cyan vs purple/greenish-yellow) and pairs of equiluminant and luminant gratings (e.g. magenta/cyan vs dark-grey/light-grey, or purple/greenish-yellow vs dark-grey/light-grey). Maximum aftereffects occurred for gratings whose colours were modulated along the principle axes of the colour space of Krauskopf, Williams and Heeley (1982): an axis of short-wavelength cone activation (B-cone axis), the difference between long- and medium-wavelength cone activation (R-G cone axis), and an axis of a contrast ratio of long-, medium- and short-wavelength cone activation (R + G + B cone axis). The results indicate that selectivity for orientation occurs independently in at least two chromatic channels and one achromatic channel.

Color and luminance share a common motion pathway.

Following exposure to a moving grating of bars differing only in luminance, a motion aftereffect (MAE) is observed on a stationary grating of bars differing only in chrominance. This suggests that the motion of equiluminous chromatic stimuli is sensed by a channel that responds to both luminance and chrominance and not by a separate channel specialized for the motion of colored stimuli. However, adding color to a low contrast luminance stimulus actually reduces its effectiveness at creating or nulling a MAE, indicating that the response of the motion pathway to color is qualitively different from its response to luminance. In addition, a chromatic stimulus demonstrates a dissociation between perceived speed, MAE speed and speed required to null the MAE that is absent for a luminance stimulus.

Perception of motion in equiluminous kinematograms.

Two fields of random dots that were identical except for a slight shift in a central square region were presented in rapid alternation. This produced a vivid impression of a square moving back and forth above the background. When the kinematogram is presented in equiluminous red/green, the motion of the central region can still be seen, although over a narrower range of alternation rates, interstimulus intervals, and displacements than for black/white presentation. The perception of motion for equiluminous stimuli indicates that colour and motion can be analyzed conjointly by the visual system. However, as originally reported by Ramachandran and Gregory, the segregation of the oscillating central square from the background is lost at equiluminance. This segregation process therefore appears to be colour-blind.

Perceived velocity of moving chromatic gratings.

Equiluminous red-green sine-wave gratings were drifted at a uniform rate in the bottom half of a 10-deg field. In the top half of the display was a sinusoidal-luminance grating of the same spatial frequency and 95% contrast that drifted in the opposite direction. Observers, while fixating a point in the display center, adjusted the speed of this upper comparison grating so that it appeared to match the velocity of the chromatic grating below. At low spatial frequencies, equiluminous gratings were appreciably slowed and sometimes stopped even though the individual bars of the grating could be easily resolved. The amount of slowing was proportionally greatest for gratings with slow drift rates. Blue-yellow sine-wave gratings showed similar effects. When luminance contrast was held constant, increasing chrominance modulation caused further decreases in apparent velocity, ruling out the possibility that the slowing was simply due to decreased luminance contrast. Perceived velocity appears to be a weighted average of luminance and chrominance velocity information.

Interocular transfer of a chromatic frequency shift: temporal constraints.

Interocular transfer of a chromatic version of the Blakemore and Sutton (1969) [Science 166, 245-247] spatial frequency shift is not obtained with long steady (3000 msec) test presentation, but does occur when the test is brief (400 msec) or flickering. By contrast, interocular transfer of achromatic spatial frequency adaptation occurs with long steady tests as well as with brief or flickering tests.

Interocular transfer of a chromatic frequency shift.

Interocular transfer of a spatial frequency shift was obtained with equiluminous color gratings. Gratings which combined both color and luminance contrast yielded small aftereffects and no interocular transfer. Recent electrophysiological work has uncovered color-sensitive binocularly driven cells in visual cortex. These cells are transient and often respond to color contrast in the absence of luminance contrast. The stimulus parameters associated with successful interocular transfer, equiluminous colors and brief test, matched the properties of these cells. Previous failure to induce interocular transfer of color effects may be explained by inappropriate stimulus parameters.

Evidence for parallel processing in motion perception.

It is proposed that motion perception is mediated within two parallel channels in the visual system. These channels are distinguished by the following properties: rate of recovery from adaptation; degree of fine tuning for contour orientation; inclusion of color sensitive units; and ocular dominance characteristics. Three experiments are reported which test the hypothesized systems.

Color and luminance: independent frequency shifts.

Simultaneous opposite spatial frequency shifts can be obtained in chrominance and luminance channels. The chrominance shift cannot be transferred interocularly. Chrominance and luminance channels seem to perform similar but independent spatial frequency analyses.

Motion aftereffect: a global mechanism for the perception of rotation.

Observers adapted to motion by looking at rotating logarithmic spirals. They were tested with a stationary mirror image of the adapting spiral in which all contours were at 90 degrees to those of the first spiral. Motion aftereffects were reported in the contrarotational direction--that is, observers who had seen clockwise rotating motion reported seeing counterclockwise aftereffects. These aftereffects lasted one-third as long as the aftereffects obtained when the adapting spiral was used as the test figure. These two aftereffects were shown to have different storage properties, thereby indexing the operation of at least two different mechanism. We interpret the motion aftereffect that is obtained with the mirror-image stimulus as indicative of the existence of global rotation detectors.

Backward pattern masking can vary as a nonmonotonic function of target duration: on the influence of intratraget metacontrast.

The magnitude of backward masking is usually found to vary inversely with the amount of information about a target that is made available to the visual system. Contrary to these findings, we report a nonmonotonic relation between the magnitude of backward pattern masking and target duration. Specifically, masking decreased as target duration was increased to about 8 msec and, then, became more severe as target duration was further increased to a value of at least 40 msec. The occurrence of the nonmonotonic function depended on (a) the degree of definition of the target's edges, (b) the luminance levels within the target stimulus, and (c) the state of adaptation of the eye. It is hypothesized that the source of the nonmonotonic function was metacontrast interference that originated from within the target stimulus configuration. This hypothesis was supported by data that indicated that in the absence of any mask presentations, the apparent contrast between the target and its immediate background varied as a nonmonotonic function of target duration.

Motion perception: a color-contingent aftereffect.

When observers who watched repeated alternations of a red contracting spiral and green expanding spiral were later shown stationary spirals, red and a green the red stationary spiral appeared to be expanding and the green stationary spiral appeared to be contracting. These color-contingent motion after effects complement reports of motion-contingent color aftereffects and suggest that both may reflect adaptation of detectors specific to color and motion.