Abstract

We determined how extrinsic white noise correlating with cone inputs to the three primary visual pathways affects both rod-pathway temporal contrast sensitivity and the impulse response function. A four-primary photostimulator provided independent control of rod and cone photoreceptor excitations under mesopic illumination (20 photopic Td). We show that rod-pathway temporal contrast sensitivity uniformly decreases across all temporal frequencies in the presence of cone noise correlating with the inferred magnocellular, parvocellular, or koniocellular pathways. The rod-pathway temporal impulse response functions derived using the Stork–Falk procedure (with a minimum phase assumption) had lower amplitudes in the pathway-specific cone noise. Therefore, cone noise impairs rod-pathway temporal contrast sensitivity without delaying rod-pathway signal transmission.

© 2018 Optical Society of America

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