Colour vision as a post-receptoral specialization of the central visual field

The experiments address the question whether there is evidence that the central visual field is any more specialized for colour than it is for luminance contrast detection. The decline in contrast sensitivity across the visual field for colour-only (red-green) gratings is compared to that for monochromatic luminance gratings at a range of spatial frequencies in the nasal and temporal fields. Measurements are made of the chromatic spatial summation area and the relevant parts of the chromatic temporal contrast sensitivity function at different eccentricities in order to control for their influence on the decline in contrast sensitivity. Results show that at each spatial frequency colour contrast sensitivity declines with eccentricity approximately twice as steeply as luminance contrast sensitivity. The more rapid decline in colour contrast sensitivity than luminance contrast sensitivity across the visual field reveals that chromatic mechanisms are more confined than luminance mechanisms to the central field.