W. A. H. Rushton

William Albert Hugh Rushton FRS (8 December 1901 - 21 June 1980) was professor of Physiology at Trinity College, Cambridge. His main interest lay in colour vision and his Principle of Univariance is of seminal importance in the study of perception.

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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 the University of Cambridge.

Honours

• 1931 Beit Memorial Fellowship
• 1969 Honorary DSc of Case Western Reserve University
• 1970 Royal Medal of the Royal Society
• 1970 President of the Society for Psychical Research
• Fellow of the Royal Society

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