Ambiguous chromatic neural representations: Perceptual resolution by grouping

Two basic principles of human color vision are (1) color is not in light but instead constructed within the (human) perceiver and (2) in natural viewing, photoreceptor signals fail to determine uniquely the colors we see. The visual system, therefore, must resolve the ambiguity implicit in the neural representation of the stimulus. This paper focuses on a perceptual property used by the visual system to resolve ambiguity when two or more parts of a scene share the same ambiguous chromatic neural representation: the parts are grouped so tend to appear the same color. Chromatic interocular-switch rivalry, a novel paradigm, is described and then used to demonstrate grouping of two, four or 16 parts of an image with the same ambiguous chromatic representation.