The Journal of General Physiology
  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents

This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF, 883K)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Services
Right arrow Email this article
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new content in the JGP
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Crozier, W. J.
Right arrow Articles by Wolf, E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Crozier, W. J.
Right arrow Articles by Wolf, E.
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?
The Journal of General Physiology, Vol 27, 513-528, Copyright © 1944 by The Rockefeller University Press


ARTICLE

THEORY AND MEASUREMENT OF VISUAL MECHANISMS

XII. ON VISUAL DUPLEXITY



W. J. Crozier 1 and Ernst Wolf 1

1 From the Biological Laboratories, Harvard University, Cambridge

Flicker contours from vertebrates (fishes to man) show that the slope parameter sigma'log I in the efficiently descriptive probability summation 100 F/Fmax. = int–inf;log I e–(log I/Ii)–(log I/Ii)2/2(sigma')/2(sigma')2 ·d log I is distributed bimodally (simple fields, "white" light), from 0.60 to 2.3, with well defined peaks at 0.80 and 1.75. This parameter is independent of Fmax., log Ii, temperature, light-time fraction, and in general not greatly influenced by lambda. "Rod" components of known visually duplex contours, without exception, and some "cone" contours, are in the first group; an equal number of "cone" curves are in the second group, together with one simplex "rod" contour; purely cone contours are in each group, as well as cone segments of duplex curves. No firm zoological grouping of the "cone" curves can be made, on present evidence,—although the 5 fishes used give high-slope curves, 2 amphibians low slopes, reptiles (5) either high or low, birds (2) and anthropoids (2) low-slope "cone" curves.

By subdivision of the visual image and by change of wave-length, under certain conditions, in man, and by use of the "pecten effect" in birds (and man), cone contours of the low-slope class can be transformed into curves of the high-slope group. These procedures do not fundamentally change the "rod" slopes.

Consequently, although under simple conditions they are specifically determined, the forms of the F - log I contour cannot be used as diagnostic for rod or cone functioning. It is reinforced, by new data on Anolis (lizard) and Trionyx (turtle), that an obviously duplex retina is specifically correlated with a duplex performance contour, a simplex retina with a simplex one. But no support is given to the view that the shapes of these curves are diagnostic of differences in rod or cone fundamental excitabilities, or that they describe properties of these units. In visual duplexity we have to do simply with the fact that two groups of neural effects are available; it is with their properties that we deal in measurements of duplex visual excitability.

Submitted on March 27, 1944


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
Arch OphthalmolHome page
E. WOLF and B. K. McGOWAN
The Effect of Light-Time: Dark-Time Ratio and Luminance on Peripheral Sensitivity to Flicker
Arch Ophthalmol, February 1, 1963; 69(2): 241 - 250.
[Abstract] [PDF]



  Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents