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Coloured oil droplets enhance colour discrimination

Overview of attention for article published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, June 2003
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Citations

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242 Mendeley
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Title
Coloured oil droplets enhance colour discrimination
Published in
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, June 2003
DOI 10.1098/rspb.2003.2381
Pubmed ID
Authors

Misha Vorobyev

Abstract

The eyes of most diurnal reptiles and birds contain coloured retinal filters-oil droplets. Although these filters are widespread, their adaptive advantage remains uncertain. To understand why coloured oil droplets appeared and were retained during evolution, I consider both the benefits and the costs of light filtering in the retina. Oil droplets decrease cone quantum catch and reduce the overlap in sensitivity between spectrally adjacent cones. The reduction of spectral overlap increases the volume occupied by object colours in a cone space, whereas the decrease in quantum catch increases noise, and thus reduces the discriminability of similar colours. The trade-off between these two effects determines the total benefit of oil droplets. Calculations show that coloured oil droplets increase the number of object colours that can be discriminated, and thus are beneficial for colour vision.

Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 242 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Spain 2 <1%
United States 2 <1%
Australia 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Germany 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Mexico 1 <1%
Chile 1 <1%
Other 4 2%
Unknown 227 94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 59 24%
Researcher 49 20%
Student > Bachelor 33 14%
Student > Master 29 12%
Professor > Associate Professor 15 6%
Other 34 14%
Unknown 23 10%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 146 60%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 9 4%
Environmental Science 8 3%
Neuroscience 8 3%
Physics and Astronomy 7 3%
Other 28 12%
Unknown 36 15%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 April 2017.
All research outputs
#8,534,528
of 25,371,288 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
#8,147
of 11,331 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#18,541
of 52,567 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
#24
of 37 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,371,288 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 43rd percentile – i.e., 43% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 11,331 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 40.4. This one is in the 16th percentile – i.e., 16% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 52,567 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 12th percentile – i.e., 12% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 37 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 24th percentile – i.e., 24% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.