Clark R C, Santer R D, Brebner J S
School of Natural and Computing Sciences, University of Aberdeen, King's College, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, UK.
Institute of Biological, Environmental, and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3FG, UK.
R Soc Open Sci. 2017 Sep 20;4(9):170712. doi: 10.1098/rsos.170712. eCollection 2017 Sep.
Researchers must assess similarities and differences in colour from an animal's eye view when investigating hypotheses in ecology, evolution and behaviour. Nervous systems generate colour perceptions by comparing the responses of different spectral classes of photoreceptor through colour opponent mechanisms, and the performance of these mechanisms is limited by photoreceptor noise. Accordingly, the receptor noise limited (RNL) colour distance model of Vorobyev and Osorio (Vorobyev & Osorio 1998 , 351-358 (doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0302)) generates predictions about the discriminability of colours that agree with behavioural data, and consequently it has found wide application in studies of animal colour vision. Vorobyev and Osorio (1998) provide equations to calculate RNL colour distances for animals with di-, tri- and tetrachromatic vision, which is adequate for many species. However, researchers may sometimes wish to compute RNL colour distances for potentially more complex colour visual systems. Thus, we derive a simple, single formula for the computation of RNL distance between two measurements of colour, equivalent to the published di-, tri- and tetrachromatic equations of Vorobyev and Osorio (1998), and valid for colour visual systems with any number of types of noisy photoreceptors. This formula will allow the easy application of this important colour visual model across the fields of ecology, evolution and behaviour.
在研究生态学、进化和行为学的假设时，研究人员必须从动物的视角评估颜色的异同。神经系统通过颜色拮抗机制比较不同光谱类型光感受器的反应来产生颜色感知，而这些机制的性能受光感受器噪声的限制。因此，沃罗比耶夫和奥索里奥的受体噪声限制（RNL）颜色距离模型（沃罗比耶夫和奥索里奥，1998年，第351 - 358页（doi:10.1098/rspb.1998.0302））对颜色可辨别性的预测与行为数据相符，因而在动物颜色视觉研究中得到了广泛应用。沃罗比耶夫和奥索里奥（1998年）提供了用于计算具有二色性、三色性和四色性视觉动物的RNL颜色距离的方程，这对许多物种来说已足够。然而，研究人员有时可能希望计算潜在更复杂颜色视觉系统的RNL颜色距离。因此，我们推导出一个简单的单一公式，用于计算两种颜色测量之间的RNL距离，该公式等同于沃罗比耶夫和奥索里奥（1998年）已发表的二色性、三色性和四色性方程，并且对具有任意数量类型噪声光感受器的颜色视觉系统均有效。这个公式将使这个重要的颜色视觉模型能够轻松应用于生态学、进化和行为学领域。
