170 likes | 360 Views
Color Harmony and the Opponent-Process Channel Theory. Christina Lewis Psych 159. TRICHROMATIC THEORY Thomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz, 18’th-19’th century. Opponent-Process Theory 1878 Ewald Hering
E N D
Color Harmony and the Opponent-Process Channel Theory Christina Lewis Psych 159
TRICHROMATIC THEORYThomas Young and Hermann von Helmholtz, 18’th-19’th century
Opponent-Process Theory • 1878 Ewald Hering • Certain color combinations don’t exist (we never see them), such as reddish-green or yellowish-blue • Three receptor types, each with opposing pairs: red green, blue yellow, black white
Opponent Neurons • Excitatory response to some wavelengths and inhibitory response to others • Red-Green receptors cannot send information about both colors at the same time • Responses to one color of an opponent channel are antagonistic to those to the other color. • **More efficient, given that for the cones, responses to certain wavelengths overlap. Differences are more important.
CONES BIPOLAR CELLS GANGLION CELLS PARVOCELLULAR MAGNOCELLULAR Processes differences between L & M Cones, Red – Green differences Processes difference between S cones, blue-yellow differences Intensity of light
How it Works Red-Green Channel: The difference between long-wavelength and middle-wavelength cone signals. Yellow-Blue Channel: The difference between short wavelength cones and the sum of the other two cones. *Luminance Channel*: Based on inputs from all the colors. Detects the difference in brightness of color information.
ISOLUMINANCE DIFFERENT COLORS - SAME BRIGHTNESS
This is a very bad words-on-background color-pair, because there is very little difference between the luminance of the color dark-blue and the luminance of the color black. Youhellohavepsychnoclassproblemthisreadingisonlyathereadinggreentestwords.
Implications • Color-opponent channels: • Color is good for SEPARATING OBJECTS • Separating regions • Luminance Channel: • Contrast transmits SHAPE INFORMATION (**edges**) • Fine detail
Other Important Properties of Opponent Channels • Luminance > Purely Chromatic Information: • (for many aspects of vision including): • Stereoscopic depth: Cannot detect differences in depth based purely on color channel information
Other Important Properties of Color Channels • Motion Perception: • Luminance > Purely Chromatic Information • If gratings of different colors but equal luminance are moving, we detect the speed much slower (or for some humans, completely immobile) as compared to a grating of very large contrast difference (for example a black and white or black and yellow grating).
After-Images-Fatigue of one color receptive causes stimulation of its opponent color in the pair