Reaction time measures of non-chromatic contamination in opponent stimuli

Abstract

Simple visual reaction times (RTs) are highly sensitive to the presence of transient activity. Transient and sustained visual mechanisms generate different RT versus contrast functions because they have different gains. To identify non-chromatic (transient) activity, we can compare RT versus contrast functions obtained with either fast or slow onset stimuli. To test this, the stimulus adopted was a temporal modulation along the red–green axis, introducing non-chromatic components by varying the red–green ratio. The technique was sensitive to departures from isoluminance for all observers; therefore, we present this method as a way to detect transient contamination in a chromatic stimulus.