Summary
Synthesis of the well-known coincidence and fluctuation concepts for description of visual threshold in dependence of geometry and duration of test stimulus and of luminance and of color of a masking background was based on an arithmetic adaptation mechanism in the data processing action of the retina upon the incident quanta (Bouman, 1964; Bouman and Ampt, 1966). This mechanism is essentially a scaler with a scale factor depending on the present and past values of the input intensity and is for a constant input proportional and nearly equal to the square root of the average quanta input per unit time upon the scaler's retinal area. An increase of input makes the scale factor increase with a fixed number for every other pulse of the excess-output. This makes the successive K-values during light adaptation follow an arithmetic series. For dark-adaptation another adequate procedure is suggested. The neurophysiological relevance of the model is demonstrated by successful description of a number of experimental studies on spike-behavior notably by Hartline, Mueller, Ratliff and Kuffler, Fitzhugh and Barlow. As the model stems from psychophysical studies, relevance for visual threshold behavior is implicit in the paper. The De Vries-Rose law and Weber-Fechner law are proven to have unique positions in systems with one stage stochastical scaling mechanisms.
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van de Grind, W.A., Bouman, M.A. A model of a retinal sampling-unit based on fluctuation theory. Kybernetik 4, 136–141 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288546
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00288546