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Animal colour vision - behavioural tests and physiological concepts

Author

Summary, in English

Over a century ago workers such as J. Lubbock and K. von Frisch developed behavioural criteria for establishing that non-human animals see colour. Many animals in most phyla have since then been shown to have colour vision. Colour is used for specific behaviours, such as phototaxis and object recognition, while other behaviours such as motion detection are colour blind. Having established the existence of colour vision, research focussed on the question of how many spectral types of photoreceptors are involved. Recently, data on photoreceptor spectral sensitivities have been combined with behavioural experiments and physiological models to study systematically the next logical question: what neural interactions underlie colour vision? This review gives an overview of the methods used to study animal colour vision, and discusses how quantitative modelling can suggest how photoreceptor signals are combined and compared to allow for the discrimination of biologically relevant stimuli.

Publishing year

2003

Language

English

Pages

81-118

Publication/Series

Biological Reviews

Volume

78

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article review

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Topic

  • Zoology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Lund Vision Group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1469-185X