(Received October 23, 2000; Accepted May 25, 2001)

The effect of spatial summation on chromatic detection at suprathreshold levels for the red-green and yellow-blue chromatic opponent mechanisms has been studied using simple reaction time (RT) as a measurement of the response. We varied the target size in the experiments from 8 min of arc in diameter to 10 deg, and the hue-substitution paradigm was adopted to generate only chromatic changes in the cone input. Equiluminant stimuli were distributed along three tritan and three red-green confusion lines. Three reference stimuli were chosen as both reference and adapting stimuli, in this case to determine whether the chromatic adaptation affected the spatial summation. The results showed that the mean value of RT at a constant cone-input variation, either of the L − 2M channel or of the S − (L+M) channel, against the target size decreased until a stimulus size was reached, the RT being constant for greater sizes. The spatial summation was fulfilled for a maximum target size which was less for the L − 2M channel than for the S − (L+M) channel, this size decreasing as the cone-input variation rose. Furthermore, there was no spatial summation for high-enough variations in the cone input. In addition, the chromatic mechanisms appear to organize their spatial integration with the adapting level.