INTERMITTENT STIMULATION BY LIGHT : IV. A THEORETICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE QUANTITATIVE DATA OF FLICKER

A theoretical treatment of the data of intermittent stimulation by light is presented in terms of the familiar reversible photochemical system previously used for other properties of vision. It appears that such a system considered merely as the initial event in photoreception is capable of giving a first order quantitative description of the relation between critical frequency and illumination for different retinal regions, and of Talbot's law. Moreover the development of this concept shows that the general form of most of the existing relationships in flicker are already apparent in the characteristics of the behavior of this initial photochemical event.