Is binocular fusion of "cortical yellow" an illusion, contingent upon abstraction of coherent sensory information from the two eyes?

Percept Mot Skills. 2007 Feb;104(1):298-306. doi: 10.2466/pms.104.1.298-306.

Abstract

This research on the binocular fusion of phenomenal yellow, given red-filtered flashes of light in one eye and green-filtered flashes of light in the other, directly compared the effects of wider-bandwidth and narrow-bandwidth filtering. 20 male college students with normal stereopsis, Mage = 19.3 yr., SD = 2.2, were tested for the binocular perception of flashing yellow sensations given wider-bandwidth versus narrow-bandwidth filtering of light flashes which, monocularly, were experienced as red sensations in one eye and as green sensations in the other. When 3 wide-bandwidth tests for binocular yellow fusion were alternated with 3 narrow-bandwidth tests, simultaneous flashes of red-filtered light in one eye and green-filtered light in the other were binocularly perceived as yellowish on 25% of the wide-bandwidth tests (SD = 40%)--as yellow on 8% of the tests, orange on 12% of the tests, yellow-green on 5% of the tests-and were binocularly perceived as yellowish on 0% of the narrow-bandwidth tests. When wider-bandwidth and narrow-bandwidth testing were separated spatially and conducted contemporaneously, the red-filtered flashes in one eye and green-filtered flashes in the other were binocularly experienced as yellowish sensations by 80% of all participants under wider-bandwidth conditions--as yellow by 55%, orange by 10%, yellow-green by 15%--and as yellowish sensations by 0% of the participants under narrow-bandwidth conditions.

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Color Perception / physiology*
  • Flicker Fusion / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Optical Illusions / physiology*
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Psychophysics
  • Vision, Binocular / physiology*
  • Visual Cortex / physiology*