Color properties of the motion detectors projecting to the goldfish tectum: I. A color matching study

Responses of direction-selective and orientation-selective motion detectors were recorded extracellularly from the axon terminals of ganglion cells in the superficial layers of the tectum opticum of immobilized goldfish, Carassius gibelio (Bloch, 1782). Color stripes or edges moving on some color background (presented on the CRT monitor with known emission spectra of its phosphors) served as stimuli. It was shown that stimuli of any color can be more or less matched with the background by varying their intensities what is indicative of color blindness of the motion detectors. Sets of stimuli which matched the background proved to represent planes in the three-dimensional color space of the goldfish. A relative contribution of different types of cones to the spectral sensitivity was estimated according to orientation of the plane of color matches. The spectral sensitivity of any motion detector was shown to be determined mainly by long-wave cones with a weak negative (opponent) contributions of middle-wave and/or short-wave ones. This resulted in reduced sensitivity in the blue-green end of the spectrum, what may be considered as an adaptation to the aquatic environment where, because of the substantial light scattering of a blue-green light, acute vision is possible only in a red region of the spectrum.