Vision

nearsighted

nearby objects seen more clearly; elongated eye

farsighted

far objects seen more clearly; eye shortened

photo receptor cells

rods and cones

rods

eye adjusting; peripheral retina, detect black, white, grey, twilight/low light (share bipolar cells with multiple rods)

cones

color vision; center of retina, fine detail/color, daylight/well-lit (have their own bipolar cells)

bipolar cells

receive messages from photoreceptors to ganglion cell

ganglion cells

form optic nerve, send messages to brain, sent to occipital lobe

colors

way of interpreting wavelengths of light

wavelength

wave distance determines hue

intensity

height of wave determines light brightness

saturation

darkness/shadows, purity of light wave

blindsight

people can “see” even when blind; see w/o perceiving

trichromatic color theory

3 receptors: green, blue, red, combine to see colors

opponent-process theory

color combos we can’t see, one off and one on to form colors

color blindness

cones don’t respond properly to wavelengths

transduction

conversion of one form of energy, such as light waves, into another form, like neural impulses that our brain can interpret

transduction steps:

receive, transform, deliver

iris

colored part of the eye, muscle, controls the pupil

pupil

black dot, changes size and shape, lets light in

cornea

protective covering

lens

focuses the image of the eye

retina

the “movie screen” of the eye, contains receptor cells

optic nerve

transmits to brain

fovea

central focus point, most of eye’s cones

blind spot

where optic nerve leaves eye’s receptors

feature detectors

the visual system has feature detectors for lines and angles of different orientations as well as for more complex stimuli, such as faces. 

parallel processing

the ability of the brain to simultaneously process multiple aspects of visual information, such as color, motion, and depth.