Influence of rod adaptation upon cone responses to light offset in humans: I. Results in normal observers

Dark-adapted rods exert a tonic suppressive influence upon cone-mediated sensitivity to rapid flicker, a phenomenon called suppressive rod-cone interaction (SRCI). However, rod dark adaptation has negligible influence upon cone-mediated thresholds measured with more usual psychophysical procedures. The present study separately examined the influences of rod light and dark adaptation upon cone-mediated sensitivity to transient increases or decreases in illumination using sawtooth flicker with rapid-on (ramp-off) or rapid-off (ramp-on) waveforms. In the parafoveal retina, cones alone were stimulated with flicker by spatially superimposing long- and short-wavelength stimuli presented in counterphase and matched in scotopic illuminance. Several different adaptation procedures were used. For higher (greater than 4 Hz) frequencies, sensitivity of cones to both waveforms is nearly identical under any condition of adaptation; sensitivity decreases as rods progressively dark adapt. A considerably different situation exists for slower frequencies (1-4 Hz). Sensitivity of cones to rapid-off flicker is appreciably greater under light-adapted conditions confirming recent observations by Bowen et al. (1989). But as rods progressively dark adapt, sensitivity of cones to rapid-off waveforms decreases considerably while sensitivity to rapid-on waveforms is much less affected; in the totally dark-adapted eye, sensitivity to both waveforms is identical. These results confirm and extend recent physiological observations in amphibian retina (Frumkes & Wu, 1990) suggesting that SRCI specifically involves responses to transient decreases in illumination.