Multi-coloured stereograms unveil two binocular colour mechanisms in human vision

Two different colours, one presented to one eye and the other presented to the other eye, often create the impression of a third colour. This percept is known as binocular colour mixture. Here we use coloured stereograms to study binocular colour appearance. Vivid pastel colours are induced in monocular, achromatic patches, if these are placed in stereograms whose left and right images differ in colour. The build-up of the colours is slow and takes tens of seconds or even minutes in certain individuals. The induced colours remain visible during monocular viewing of the patch and decay gradually. The same colours are induced irrespective of whether the patches are placed in fusible or rivalrous stereograms. We show that these colour effects cannot be induced by monocular colour mechanisms, either alone or in combination with binocular colour mixing. We suggest that the colours are induced by a binocular feedback mechanism, which reduces colour differences between the colour appearances of two monocular images. Induced colours are not observed if the achromatic patches are binocular. However, induced colours are apparent if one switches to monocular viewing after prolonged binocular viewing of the binocular patches. This aftereffect suggests that binocular colour induction acts on the monocular representations of binocular images. We suggest that during binocular viewing the fast process of binocular colour mixing masks the changes in colour appearance produced by the much slower process of binocular colour induction.