Abstract

In an earlier paper¹ the properties of color spectra as a collection of frequency-limited functions were considered in relation to trichromacy. A well-known formula which proposes that the number of significant degrees of freedom of a frequency-limited distribution (with frequency limit F) in an interval of limited extent (E) is N = [2EF] + 1 was applied ([x] being the nearest integer smaller than x). The relation between trichromacy (N = 3) and the visual spectrum (E = 400–700 nm) was investigated and it was concluded that the visual system can sufficiently represent with three degrees of freedom a collection of signals with a frequency limit of 0.005 cycles/nm.

© 1986 Optical Society of America