The directional sensitivities of the Stiles' colour mechanisms.

Field sensitivities of the three IIj (j = 3, 4, 5) mechanisms of Stiles were measured for monochromatic backgrounds of different wave numbers (mu)-1 traversing the eye through different points (r) displaced along a horizontal chord through the centre of the entrance pupil. Each mechanism shows an insensitivity to the direction of retinal incidence of short-wave backgrounds not previously described. The spectral densities of the centre-most part of the lens and of the macular pigment were measured on this eye. With reasonable assumptions the former allowed for correction at the receptor level of the directional sensitivity; together with the latter it allowed correction for the spectral sensitivity as well. No correction for the attenuation of the high spatial frequencies of the background as it traversed the pupil at different r was needed. The anomalies of section 2 (above) disappear after correction for losses in the eye media. After these corrections, for every mu and r, the results are well described by the parabola 'tentatively' suggested by Stiles (1939) for each mechanism, allowing only a small amount of variance attributable to experimental imprecision alone. Each mechanism is most sensitive to backgrounds going through essentially the same point of the pupil, independent of background. This result is inconsistent with a qualitative explanation of the 'hue shift' suggested by Safir, Hyams & Philpot (1971). The field sensitivity spectra for backgrounds traversing the pupil at this most effective point and at the 3.5 mm margin, are the data needed to predict this observer's brightness and colour matches of monochromatic lights passing through the entrance pupil at these two points according to a unified theory of the two Stiles-Crawford effects. In the following paper these predictions are quantified and confronted with results of the matching experiments (Alpern, Kitahara & Tamaki, 1982).