Neural Inhibitory Units of the Eye and Skin Quantitative Description of Contrast Phenomena*

Experiments on the skin show that it is convenient to use a “neural unit” for the description of some phenomena of sensation magnitude that have been observed. The neural unit consists of an area of sensation surrounded by a refractory area of inhibition. The paper tries to show how the numerical values for the unit can be determined for the eye and the skin and how they can be used in the description of Mach bands. In addition, step functions are described from which it is possible to deduce two simple formulas for the calculation of Mach bands. This procedure is very similar to the method used in telecommunication theory for the calculation of transients.