Measurements of long-range suppression in human opponent S-cone and achromatic luminance channels

Abstract

Cortical responses to spatially discrete patches of achromatic luminance contrast can be altered by the presence of high-contrast, spatially remote "surrounds" and this achromatic "surround suppression" has been the subject of much recent research. However, the nature of long-range contrast normalization in chromatic signals has been less studied. Here we use a combination of neuroimaging data from source-imaged EEG and two different psychophysical measures of surround suppression to study contrast normalization in stimuli containing achromatic luminance and S-cone-isolating contrast. In an appearance matching task, we find strong within-channel but little between-channel suppression. However, using a contrast increment detection task, we do find evidence for weak but significant between-channel effects. Our neural measurements agree with the appearance matching data, showing significant within-channel suppression and no significant interactions between signals initiated in different pre-cortical pathways. We hypothesize that appearance judgments and V1 population responses are dominated by neurons with chromatically matched classical and extra-classical surrounds while contrast increment detection tasks rely on a subpopulation of neurons that have extra-classical surrounds sensitive to both chromatic and achromatic contrasts. Our psychophysical and source-imaged EEG results are consistent with a hypothesis based on natural scene statistics that long-range contrast normalization in early visual system is largely driven by signals within the same chromatic channel.