The standard model of early color processing postulates an achromatic magno LGN non- opponent pathway summing the outputs of the L and M cones; a red-green parvo LGN opponent cell system differencing L and M cones; and a yellow-blue or tritan parvo LGN opponent cell system differencing S from the (L + M) cones. A number of psychophysical and perceptual findings, however, do not agree with this standard model, and we have suggested an alternative. Our model diverges from that above in three fundamental ways: (1) L-M and M-L cells do not constitute the `red-green' system, but serve as the principal inputs to both the red-green and yellow-blue systems; (2) S-LM and LM-S opponent cells do not constitute the yellow-blue system, but rather combine at a third stage with the LM opponent cells in different ways to produce both the red-green and the yellow-blue systems, serving a modulatory role to break the one effective LGN response axis into separate red-green and yellow-blue perceptual color axes at some cortical site; (3) in addition to chromatic information, the parvo opponent cells (as well as the magno cells) carry intensity information, the chromatic and intensity components being separated at the third stage.
|