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How gerbils orient in the light of the setting sun

Publication by GSN PhD Student Josephine Henke, faculty members Prof. Dr. Christian Leibold, PD Dr. Thomas Wachtler, and MCN member Dr. Kay Thurley

26.01.2015

A light brown remains light brown: For gerbils, the fur color of their conspecifics appears identical under different lighting conditions. Munich neurobiologists demonstrate for the first time the ability of color constancy in rodents.

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Foto: Michaela Pucher / Fotolia.com

A green apple is green, but the green is not always the same. In varying light conditions — like at sunset — the spectrum of the light that is reflected by the fruit and falls on our retina, changes. Nevertheless, we continue to perceive the color of the apple as green because the human brain compensates for the influences of illumination by evaluating the color and brightness composition across the entire visual field. This capacity is known as color and brightness constancy and is important for object recognition. Researchers at the LMU Munich and the Bernstein Center Munich, including GSN PhD student Josephine Henke, led by Dr. Kay Thurley and PD Dr. Thomas Wachtler, have now investigated whether rodents also possess this remarkable perceptual ability. Their findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of Vision.

LMU press release in English and German.