Abstract

Binocular mechanisms analyzing oriented equiluminant color- and luminance-varying sinusoidal grating patterns were studied using a dichoptic adaptation paradigm. In all conditions, space-averaged chromaticity and luminance remained constant. Fusion was maintained through the use of strong binocular contours and nonius lines. The spatial frequency of both test and adaptation patterns was 2 cycles/deg. Contrast sensitivity was determined using the method of adjustments. When an equiluminant chromatic adaptation pattern was presented to one eye and an equiluminant test pattern to the other eye, the adaptation effect showed orientation selectivity. There was little adaptation effect when a chromatic pattern was used as the test with a luminance adaptation pattern or vice versa. We conclude that the binocular chromatic mechanism is similar to that seen monocularly and that there is little binocular interaction between chromatic spatial information and luminance spatial information.

© 1987 Optical Society of America