- W. A. H. Rushton
William Albert Hugh Rushton FRS (8 December 1901 - 21 June 1980) was professor of
Physiology atTrinity College, Cambridge . His main interest lay incolour vision and his "Principle of Univariance" is of seminal importance in the study ofperception .Principle of Univariance
In his lecture "Pigments and signals in colour vision" (1970, see weblink) he stated it thus: "The output of a receptor depends upon its quantum catch, but not upon what quanta are caught."
This means that one and the same visual receptor cell can be excited by different combinations of wavelength and intensity, so that the brain can not know the colour of that point of the retinal picture.
Education
Rushton was educated at
Gresham's School , Holt, and theUniversity of Cambridge .Honours
*1931 Beit Memorial Fellowship
*1969 HonoraryDSc ofCase Western Reserve University
*1970 Royal Medal of theRoyal Society
*1970 President of theSociety for Psychical Research
*Fellow of the Royal Society External links
* [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&blobtype=pdf&artid=1331666 "Pigments and signals in colour vision"]
*References
*"William Rushton, 8 December 1901-21 June 1980" by H. B. Barlow in "Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society", Vol. 32 (December 1986), pp. 422-459
*"William Albert Hugh Rushton FRS", obituary in "Vision Research" 1982: 22(6), pp 611-21
*"I Will Plant Me a Tree: an Illustrated History of Gresham's School" by S.G.G. Benson and Dr Martin Crossley Evans (James & James, London, 2002) ISBN 0-907383-92-0
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