Vertebrate brain theory

ISBN 978-3-00-064888-5

Monograph of Dr. rer. nat. Andreas Heinrich Malczan

7.6    Colour constancy - a function-theoretical law

The special feature of these interpolation circuits and inversion circuits in the amygdala and in the nucleus olivaris and cerebellum is the guarantee of colour constancy. The coding of the colour by the minimum or maximum of excitations resulting from the superposition of convex or concave functions is invariant to the multiplication of all input excitations by the same factor. Although the absolute fire rates of the signals increase, the location of the extreme value in the superposition remains the same. This is exactly the color constancy observed in reality. It does not require any higher intelligence, but is natural and legal. It follows from the invariance of the extreme value of a function compared to a simple multiplication with a factor not equal to zero. The processing of visual signals by the amygdala and by the cerebellum is now generally accepted and secured. This monograph shows for the first time the (possibly) used algorithm.

Apart from the variant of color analysis by a horizontal divergence grid in the nucleus olivaris, there is the purely theoretical possibility that color analysis is performed by a vertical divergence grid in the nucleus olivaris. In addition, the color analysis would then have to be performed separately for the red-green channel and the blue-yellow channel and would yield two results that would have to be combined into one final result in a further step. This is also contradicted by the fact that already in the amygdala a colour analysis is performed via vertical divergence grids. Identical double systems are a waste of resources and therefore disadvantageous. The presence of horizontal divergence grids in the nucleus olivaris is indicated by the large increase in area, which leads to the folding of the structure. In the case of vertical divergence grids, a greater increase in thickness would have been observed instead of the increase in area. However, the space required for this is not available at all in the brain stem. There are several weighty reasons for this variant. The most important reason, however, is the perception of coloured afterimages in the complementary colours.

Vertebrates have the ability to perform light-dark and colour analysis as well as the ability to recognise visual objects. In addition to the colour and brightness of such objects, it is primarily their outline that makes recognition possible.


Monograph of Dr. rer. nat. Andreas Heinrich Malczan