Visual Temporal Resolution

I’ve read that the rod receptors have a temporal resolution on the order of 50-100ms while the cone receptors have a resolution of around 10-15ms, therefore rods should only be able to detect an intermittent light source flicker of 10-20 HZ while cones should be able to detect intermittent light source flicker of 66-100 Hz.

Since the fovea, that part of the retina that is more densely packed near the center of your vision, contains more cones and few rods, one would think it would be able to detect flicker at higher frequencies than the periphery but this is contrary to my experience.

In the center of my vision I can perceive flicker at 60Hz marginally at 70Hz, not at all at 75Hz, under fairly bright lighting conditions, but at the periphery I can sometimes see the 120Hz flicker of fluorescent lighting and easily see the flicker of tube monitors even at 75Hz.

This seems pretty much backwards from what I would expect given the normal temporal response of rods and cone cells and their populations in the fovea and periphery.

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