Rod hue biases for foveal stimuli on CRT displays

Abstract

Signals from rod photoreceptors bias (shift) the hues determined by cone photoreceptors for extrafoveal mesopic stimuli, creating green, blue, and red rod hue biases at long, middle, and short wavelengths, respectively. The fovea contains far fewer rods and S cones but may not be immune to rod hue biases. Here, we determine the biases found for mesopic foveal stimuli presented on a CRT display. The rod green bias was observed at unique yellow for all but one observer with 2° tests and persisted for most observers with 0.5° tests. The rod red bias typically seen at unique blue in extrafoveal studies was not apparent for either size of foveal test stimulus, and it was sometimes replaced by a rod green bias. The rod blue bias typically seen at unique green and unique red in extrafoveal studies was weak on average and inconsistent for both sizes of foveal test stimuli. Thus, small mesopic foveal stimuli permit rod influence on M- and L-cone color pathways but disadvantage rod influence on S-cone pathways, perhaps because of the sparseness of foveal S-cones. However, some observers did show idiosyncratic foveal rod hue biases that do not follow the general trends.