Horwitz, Gregory DWeller, J Patrick2018-07-312018-07-312018-07-312018Weller_washington_0250E_18958.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/1773/42515Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2018Vision at moderate to high light levels begins with the activity in three types of cone photoreceptors located in back of the retina: long-wavelength-sensitive (L-) cones, medium-wavelength-sensitive (M-) cones, and short-wavelength-sensitive (S-) cones. One central goal in the field of color neurophysiology is to understand how modulations in cone activity are transformed as they propagate through the visual system. My graduate work has been dedicated to understanding how cone signals are processed in the primary visual cortex (area V1). In the first chapter, I lay out some of the typical considerations for designing an effective electrophysiology experiment in the context of color vision, such as the spatiotemporal structure of the stimulus, color spaces and stimulus distributions, as well as the quantitative models under consideration. In the second chapter, I discuss some of the pitfalls and advantages of different stimulus distributions and analysis techniques under the linear-nonlinear cascade model, a standard model in the field. In the third chapter, I present a novel single-cell electrophysiology experiment probing the effect of L- and M-cone modulations on the responses of single neurons in V1. In this chapter, I also present data from a new quantitative model for describing neural responses to L- and M-cone modulations. In the final chapter, I consider how we might use the results of these experiments to build strong priors for fitting an appropriate model of L- and M-cone processing in V1.application/pdfen-USnonecolorColor visionelectrophysiologyluminancePrimary visual cortexV1NeurosciencesPhysiology and biophysicsThesis