Rod temporal channels

Abstract

Mechanisms underlying rod temporal contrast sensitivity have been considered in terms of a fast retinal signal predominating at mesopic levels and a slower retinal signal predominating at scotopic levels. Here we use a small signal masking method, which has previously been used to delineate the cone-mediated cortical temporal channels, to investigate their rod-mediated cortical counterparts. The results suggest that there are three different rod-mediated cortical temporal channels, one which is lowpass and two which are bandpass. These mechanisms co-exist at all light levels and their relative sensitivity depend on the stimulus spatio-temporal frequency.