The Purkinje rod-cone shift as a function of luminance and retinal eccentricity

In the Purkinje shift, the dark adapted eye becomes more sensitive to blue than to red as the retinal rods take over from the cones. A striking demonstration of the Purkinje shift, suitable for classroom use, is described in which a small change in viewing distance can reverse the perceived direction of a rotating annulus. We measured this shift with a minimum-motion stimulus (Anstis & Cavanagh, Color Vision: Physiology & Psychophysics, Academic Press, London, 1983) that converts apparent lightness of blue versus red into apparent motion. We filled an iso-eccentric annulus with radial red/blue sectors, and arranged that if the blue sectors looked darker (lighter) than the red sectors, the annulus would appear to rotate to the left (right). At equiluminance the motion appeared to vanish. Our observers established these motion null points while viewing the pattern at various retinal eccentricities through various neutral density filters.

The luminous efficiency of blue (relative to red) increased linearly with eccentricity at all adaptation levels, and the more the dark-adaptation, the steeper the slope of the eccentricity function. Thus blue sensitivity was a linear function of eccentricity and an exponential function of filter factor. Blue sensitivity increased linearly with eccentricity, and each additional log(10) unit of dark adaptation changed the slope threefold.