The dynamics of the pi 1 colour mechanism: further evidence for two sites of adaptation

Abstract

1. The visual pathway that determines Stiles's Pi(1) colour mechanism was isolated by the auxiliary field technique and studied under dynamic conditions of light adaptation and recovery by threshold measurements.2. The time courses of adaptation to Pi(1)-equated short wave-length (mu </= 500 nm) and long wave-length (mu >/= 550 nm) fields are very distinct: a large and relatively long-enduring transient threshold elevation occurs at the onset of the long wave-length, but not of the short wave-length fields.3. Similarly, the time courses of recovery from Pi(1)-equated long and short wave-length fields are quite distinctive: a large and relatively long enduring transient (;transient tritanopia') occurs at the offset of the long wave-length, but not of the short wave-length fields.4. The wave-lengths of the fields which cause the adaptation transients coincide with those shown previously (Pugh, 1976) to combine non-additively with mu = 430 nm fields in effecting Pi(1) adaptation. The failure of the time course of Pi(1) adaptation to be spectrally ;univariant' combines with the failures of field-additivity to demonstrate that signals from the long and/or middle wave-length sensitive cones affect the adaptation state of the Pi(1) pathway.5. The adaptation transients are not observed in the pathways that determine Pi(4) and Pi(5). Thus, instantaneous signals from the middle and/or long wave-length sensitive cones are not the cause of the transients. Rather the cause must lie in the path by which those cones transmit their signals to the Pi(1) pathway or in the Pi(1) pathway itself.6. The off-transient can be diminished by adding an adequately intense short wave-length field to a long wave-length field that would normally cause it. The Pi(1) pathway must receive chromatically opponent signals.