Purkinje effect

The Purkinje effect (sometimes called the Purkinje shift or dark adaptation) is the tendency for the peak luminance sensitivity of the human eye to shift toward the blue end of the color spectrum at low illumination levels. The effect is named after the Czech anatomist Jan Evangelista Purkyně.

This effect introduces a difference in color contrast under different levels of illumination. For instance, in bright sunlight, geranium flowers appear bright red against the dull green of their leaves, or adjacent blue flowers, but in the same scene viewed at dusk, the contrast is reversed, with the red petals appearing a dark red or black, and the leaves and blue petals appearing relatively bright.

The sensitivity to light in scotopic vision varies with wavelength, though the perception is essentially black-and-white. The Purkinje shift is the relation between the absorption maximum of rhodopsin, reaching a maximum at about 500 nm, and that of the opsins in the long-wavelength and medium-wavelength cones that dominate in photopic vision, about 555 nm.

In visual astronomy, the Purkinje shift can affect visual estimates of variable stars when using comparison stars of different colors, especially if one of the stars is red.

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