[js1138]

Neurons (and photoreceptors are neurons) tend to code events as a change in firing rate. All neurons have a quiescent firing rate.

If you tickle the retina with flickering light you get subjective colors

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-31,GGLG:en&q=benham+colors

I'm thinking the flicker rate that produces the experience of color must be related to the firing rate that would produce the "true" experience of color. I did some work on this in college, but it's an incredibly difficult field.

[doc30]

Interesting links. I only took a quick look at the first to get the ghist of the subject. This experiment does demonstrate that color preception is neurological since none of those colors are actually present on the disk. It may well be related to firing rate. Butthe important point is that the receptors, in conjunction with the neurology between the receptors and the brain's perception, are stimulated in such a way that color is perceived. Your brain really senses it, but it is an interpretation of data coming from the retina.

Based on what I know, the trick is to stimulate the cones in such a way that the brain perceives a given color. There are three types of cones, each with a different spectral response. I can easily imagine that, as the disk is spinning, the constrast line between the white and black would move across the retina as a front. Since the cones (receptors) are activating at slightly different times, because no two receptors are in the exact same location, then the brain perceives this phase difference as a different ratio between different receptors and color perception is generated. It is a very interesting illusion.

[null and void]

I'm thinking the flicker rate that produces the experience of color must be related to the firing rate that would produce the "true" experience of color. I did some work on this in college, but it's an incredibly difficult field.

I've often wondered what would happen if one simulated one color's code with a flickering light of a different color...