Is discrimination enhanced at a category boundary? The case of unique red

Abstract

Is chromatic discrimination enhanced at the boundary between different hues? In previous studies, we gave a positive answer for the case of the locus of unique blues and yellows, the boundary that divides color space into reddish and greenish hues. But we did not find enhancement at the locus of unique green, the boundary between yellowish and bluish hues. In the present study, we examined discrimination near the locus of unique red. In interleaved experimental runs, we obtained (1) discrimination thresholds using a four-alternative spatial forced choice and (2) phenomenological judgments of the locus of unique red. When measurements were made along lines parallel to the locus of unique blues and yellows in a MacLeod-Boynton diagram, the locus of minimal thresholds coincided approximately with the locus of unique red; however, this was not the case when measurements were made along lines orthogonal to the locus of unique blues and yellows. To account for these and earlier results, we suppose that the neural channel that determines the discrimination threshold will sometimes coincide with the channel that determines the perceptual hue equilibrium and sometimes will not. If a given point in chromaticity space is a unique hue, then it is expected to remain a unique hue independently of the direction in which measurements are made; however, discrimination thresholds almost certainly will depend on different underlying channels when measurements are made in different directions through the same point in chromaticity space.