Flicker photometric study of chromatic adaption: selective suppression of cone inputs by colored backgrounds.

Flicker photometric equivalence is both additive and transitive when the test and standard are alternated upon a relatively more intense colored background. When the balance of red versus green cone excitation from the background is unequal, the contribution of one cone type to flicker photometric spectral sensitivity may be depressed in relation to that of the other by at least 1 order of magnitude more than Weber's law predicts. The resultant spectral sensitivity is determined predominantly by only one class of cone. The cone spectral sensitivities of normals are then seen to be the same as those of dichromats, although there is some individual variation. A model is developed to explain this surprising phenomenon.