Visually guided movements to color targets.

Full Abstract

The pathways controlling motor behavior are believed to exhibit little selectivity for color, but there is growing evidence suggesting that color signals can be used to guide actions. We investigated this by having observers make a saccade or a rapid pointing movement to a small, peripherally flashed (100 ms) Gaussian target (SD=0.5 degrees) defined exclusively by luminance (maximum contrast) or color (from cardinal DKL red-green or blue-yellow axes, at maximum saturation). We found no difference in saccadic or pointing accuracy for luminance or color targets. The same was true using shutter goggles during pointing (to minimize the use of external cues), and when the luminance contrast of color targets was varied by up to +/-10%. In terms of response times, both eye and hand latencies increased with target eccentricity for R-G targets only, in a manner consistent with the sensitivity of this channel across eccentricity. We found little difference in response latencies between luminance and color targets once matched in terms of cone contrast. While RTs were longer when coupled with a goal directed pointing movement (versus a simple reaction without pointing), the difference was the same for color or luminance targets, suggesting that the spatial coding for the movements was also the same. In a final experiment we compared the accuracy of pointing to color-naming performance in a 4AFC procedure. The psychometric functions relating pointing accuracy (% correct quadrant) to color-naming (% correct color-name) were identical. Taken together, the results show that human observers can efficiently use pure chromatic signals to guide actions.

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Author information

Author/s: White, Brian J (BJ); Kerzel, Dirk (D); Gegenfurtner, Karl R (KR);

Affiliation: Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Abteilung Allgemeine Psychologie, Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10F, 35394, Giessen, Germany. brian.j.white(-atsign-)psychol.uni-giessen.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Experimental brain research. Experimentelle Hirnforschung. Expérimentation cérébrale (Exp Brain Res), published in Germany. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Oct; vol 175 (issue 1) : pp 110-26

Dates: Created 2006/10/10; Completed 2007/10/02; Revised 2008/11/21;

PMID: 16733702, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Analysis of Variance
Attention - physiology
Color
Color Perception - physiology
Contrast Sensitivity - physiology
Eye Movements - physiology

Eye Movements - physiology
Humans
Photic Stimulation - methods
Psychophysics
Reaction Time - physiology
Vision, Ocular - physiology

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