CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Previous measurements developed by this group and shown at this conference prove that at retinal eccentricities between 6º and 9º especially fast adaptation to sudden changes in retinal illumination is produced. The aim of this work is to provide the time course of adaptation for these eccentricities as well as foveal. A two maxwellian view system has been designed which allows to measure detection thresholds in presence of transient or steady adapting beams. Detection thresholds (td) were measured for 0º, 6º and 9º degrees of temporal eccentricity considering dark adaptation (DA), steady light adaptation (LA) and transient light adaptation (SOA0, SOA50, SOA150 and SOA300). Results show that whiles the fovea does not end to adapt during the time presentation of the flash (500 msec), the adaptation is completed into the first 300m sec for 6º and into the first 150 msec for 9º. The level of light in the adaptation field in which contribution to both cones and rods should be considered joined to the different densities of these photoreceptors in these retinal areas may be the responsible of this experimentally found behaviour.