Psychophysical evidence for a purely binocular color system

Two adaptation experiments were conducted to examine a hypothesis for a purely binocular color system that responds only to simultaneous inputs from the two eyes and that inhibits the activities of a pair of monocular color systems with each receiving input from their respective eye. In the first experiment, after a red or green stimulus was presented to both eyes to adapt the hypothesized binocular system, its compensatory color was presented alternately to each eye to nullify the adaptation effect of the hypothesized monocular systems. Results showed that after adaptation, the color appearance of a test stimulus shifted more to that of the compensatory color in binocular viewing than in monocular viewing. In the second experiment, a red or green stimulus was presented either to both eyes or to the left eye, and then its compensatory color was presented only to the left eye. Comparison was made to the adaptation effect between the binocular presentation of the color stimulus and its monocular presentation. Results showed that the color appearance viewed with the left eye shifted toward the compensatory color for the binocular adaptation and was constant for the monocular adaptation. These results are consistent with the idea of a “purely” binocular color system inhibiting the activity of a pair of monocular systems.