Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
PLoS One. 2010 Feb 24;5(2):e9338. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009338.
Visual processing of color starts at the cones in the retina and continues through ventral stream visual areas, called the parvocellular pathway. Motion processing also starts in the retina but continues through dorsal stream visual areas, called the magnocellular system. Color and motion processing are functionally and anatomically discrete. Previously, motion processing areas MT and MST have been shown to have no color selectivity to a moving stimulus; the neurons were colorblind whenever color was presented along with motion. This occurs when the stimuli are luminance-defined versus the background and is considered achromatic motion processing. Is motion processing independent of color processing? We find that motion processing is intrinsically modulated by color. Color modulated smooth pursuit eye movements produced upon saccading to an aperture containing a surface of coherently moving dots upon a black background. Furthermore, when two surfaces that differed in color were present, one surface was automatically selected based upon a color hierarchy. The strength of that selection depended upon the distance between the two colors in color space. A quantifiable color hierarchy for automatic target selection has wide-ranging implications from sports to advertising to human-computer interfaces.
颜色的视觉处理始于视网膜中的视锥细胞，并通过称为小细胞通路的腹侧流视觉区域继续进行。运动处理也始于视网膜，但通过称为大细胞系统的背侧流视觉区域继续进行。颜色和运动处理在功能和解剖上是不同的。以前，已经表明运动处理区域 MT 和 MST 对运动刺激没有颜色选择性；只要在运动的同时呈现颜色，神经元就是色盲。当刺激是与背景亮度定义的，而不是颜色定义的时，就会发生这种情况，这被认为是无颜色的运动处理。运动处理是否独立于颜色处理？我们发现运动处理会受到颜色的内在调制。在扫视到一个包含黑色背景上的一致运动点的孔径时，颜色会调制平滑的追踪眼球运动。此外，当存在两个颜色不同的表面时，一个表面会根据颜色层次结构自动选择。选择的强度取决于颜色空间中两个颜色之间的距离。用于自动目标选择的可量化颜色层次结构具有广泛的影响，从运动到广告到人机界面。
