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VISION

As the sensory system that is stimulated by the energy in light and transduced into
nervous impulses by receptors in the eyes, vision's chief function is to extract
information in optic patterns and events. The study of vision involves analyses of energy,
pattern, information, meaning, and communication via visible displays.

The energy in light consists of individual packets or photons that are capable of modifying the
activity of individual receptors in the eye, but most of the information in light depends on the
patterns in the optic array that affect banks of receptors in the retina of the eye simultaneously.
A single ray of light has an intensity and a wavelength (with longer wavelengths of about 650
nanometers generally appearing red and shorter wavelengths of about 400 nanometers
generally appearing violet). A pattern of light contains more information since it can allow a
viewer to recognize objects, notice depth and spatial arrangements, detect the useful
properties of surfaces, and communicate. The patterns in light have significance that depends
on both natural factors, like the changes that indicate a fruit is ripening, and artificial
conditions, like the exaggerations in caricatures.

Vision depends in the first instance on sources of light. One or more luminous bodies, like the
sun, must provide light. Typically, the light is reflected by the surfaces of nonluminous bodies
before forming an optic array that enters the eye. The reflected light can be rereflected time
and again before constituting an optic array accessible to vision: for example, the sun's light
can be reflected by the moon, and moonlight can be reflected by a lake, and then by a tree,
before providing an optic array “for the eye.” The arrival of light from the tree does not
ensure that the tree can be seen. The environment of the tree and the observer must meet strict
conditions if the tree is to be visible: the light from the tree will not provide information about
it if it is diffused too much by a fog, or if background light sources provide glare. Also, the
pattern of light in the optic array from the tree can be broken up by shadows falling on the
tree. Further, the background for the tree might be so similar to the tree's contours, color, and
texture that the tree's borders are not distinct visually. Also, at night, if the light from the tree
is too similar to light from other objects, such as rocks, then it would be ambiguous.
Therefore, while vision depends on light for energy, it also needs an appropriate environment
for visual patterns to be distinct.

In the second instance, vision relies on a medium for transmission of light—chiefly, space, air,
water, and glass. The medium is clear or murky in various degrees. The terrestrial daytime sky
is blue because blue light cannot penetrate the atmospheric medium as readily as red light can.
Blue's short wavelengths are comparatively readily reflected by atmospheric particles. Hence,
no matter where the observer looks, blue light will be reflected toward the observer. A sun at
sunset will look deep red if its blue light has been severely scattered by a heavy concentration
of atmospheric particles and only its red light can penetrate directly to the observer. Water
scatters all wavelengths more than air does, with the result that patterned vision in water is
restricted to a few feet. Abyssal depths are dark because light from the surface waters has
been scattered back to the surface—the deeper the water, the more scattering has occurred.
Attempts to manipulate the medium, controlling the direction of light rays and shadows, have
produced various spectacles, microscopes and telescopes, windows, and sensory aids.

For vision to occur, the eye itself must accept optic input from the medium. The curved
transparent front of the eye (the cornea), aided by the lens in a chamber behind the cornea,
brings the entering optic array to a focus on the light‐sensitive retina at the back of the eye,
with the bulging cornea having a fixed focusing power and the lens being variable. In the
retina, optic energy is transduced into electrochemical action by the sensory receptors, some
of which (the “cones”) are especially sensitive to light of particular wavelengths, while others
(the “rods”) are much less selective. The cones are found chiefly in the fovea—the center of
the eye—which insures that color vision is present only in the central four or five degrees of
vision. The rods are much more sensitive than the cones, and since they are the only receptors
that can operate in low‐light conditions, such as night vision, which is as a result colorless.

The fourth link in the chain of events underpinning vision is the neuronal functions of
transmission to different nervous‐system centers, analysis in each of the centers, and then
reactions subsequent to the analysis, including feedback to the previous levels of analysis.
Some of the feedback is straightforward and easy to observe since it includes adjustments to
the eye via muscles attached to the eye, blinking, and changing the focal length of the lens or
the radius of the iris. Some of the feedback is less observable, since it occurs entirely within
the nervous system, “higher” neuronal centers controlling “lower” ones in order to serve the
functions of attention, for example.

The first transmissions between visual neurons occur when the rod and cone receptors
synapse with other neurons in the retina. A network of connections, involving three kinds of
cells (horizontals, bipolars, and amacrines, in that order), is at work in the retina before
connections are ever made with the ganglion cells that carry visual information out of the eye
toward the brain. Consequently, considerable visual analysis occurs entirely within the eye
itself. Physiological recordings from ganglion cells reveal considerable sophistication in the
kind of optic stimulus controlling their responses or “firing rates” of nervous signals. Some
ganglion cells accept influences from retinal receptors in a large retinal region or field. The
receptive field may be organized so that light in the center of the field increases the ganglion
cell's firing rate, while light in a surrounding annulus decreases the firing rate. This is called a
center‐on/surround‐off receptive field. The receptive fields show that pattern analysis begins
in the eye itself.

The ganglion cells have a relay station on the way to the brain: the lateral geniculate nucleus
(LGN). Feedback systems from two brain areas (the reticular activating system, having to do
with general levels of arousal or wakefulness, and the visual cortex, having to do with visual
analysis) reach the LGN. This means that higher brain functions have a modifying effect on
visual information at their very first opportunity after visual information leaves the eye. The
kinds of modifications this can produce are not yet clear, though the LGN's signals seem to be
either strengthened or weakened by the feedback input.

Besides feedback, three additional principles are evident in the organization of LGNs. Each
LGN has six layers, and each layer is a map of the retina, referred to as the retinotopic
principle. Two of the layers—the magnocellular layers—have comparatively large cells, and
they accept stimulation from light of any color in their retinal receptive fields. Four—the
parvocellular layers—have smaller cells, and each cell is differentially sensitive to the color
of light in their retinal receptive fields. This is strong evidence for a “modular” or feature‐
pathway principle in vision. Indeed, color and intensity features often have quite different
pathways in vision. Strikingly, the color‐difference parvo cells hardly respond to rapid motion
in their retinal receptive fields, while the brightness magno cells are readily stimulated by
rapid motion. Thus, different pathways emerge for moving and static stimuli also. A third
principle in the LGN organization is the influence of binocular organization. Adjacent layers
in the LGN accept input from different eyes. These layers in turn feed to cells in the occipital
cortex in such a way that a cortical cell might respond most strongly when it receives
binocular input—that is, input from an LGN cell controlled by the right‐eye receptive field
and input from another LGN cell controlled by the left eye.

Each synaptic relay station offers an opportunity for successive stages of analysis to become
more specialized in vision. The next relay after the LGN is primarily the occipital cortex,
which feeds a succession of further relay stations in the brain. Firing cells in the cerebral
cortex can require more complex signals in the eye than firing bipolars in the retina or
magnocellular layers in the LGN, for example. Brain regions that receive input from the
visual cortex can be still more specialized. One such region is the medial temporal region in
the temporal lobe, which is highly specialized for the analysis of visual motion. Another is a
second temporal region that is specialized for complex familiar patterns such as faces or
species such as birds. Another is the parietal region, which is important in visual and likely in
tactile space perception, often concerned with egocentric localization in a three‐dimensional
space. The result of increasing specialization is that a single cell in the cortex can respond to a
signal such as binocular inspection of a straight contour with a well‐marked terminus, moving
swiftly left to right, while another single cell favors a human facial configuration.

Relay stations in the cerebral hemispheres have many feedback systems that serve many
functions besides directing and redirecting attention. They might help pattern analysis by
changing decisions about whether to apply one character‐recognition system or another (to
decide, for example, if a character is a B or a 13); they might govern the implications of
recognizing an object (e.g., insuring its expression is examined once it is decided that the
object is a face); and they might help group features or objects, once a higher center deems
that the items are all of one kind with visual differences due merely to their orientations,
illumination factors, depth, and, say, age and sex. The existence of many feedback loops and
cross‐connections between higher visual centers means human vision might be capable of
being modified by many influences. The result is an unanswered puzzle: how far can vision
be transformed by personal or cultural differences.

In the employment of muscles, the principles of control in the visual system, with higher relay
stations altering the work of centers of activity that input to them, operate widely and
straightforwardly. The observer can affect the direction and coordination of the two eyes via
the six extraocular muscles attached to them. But in addition, vision is served by the whole
body platform for vision. The neck muscles contribute by turning the head to see what is on
the visual periphery, bringing a peripheral object onto the central fovea or region of highest
acuity. The torso does the same to help see what is behind the observer. The entire body is
used to locomote to see around an obstacle blocking vision, to see the rear of an object, and to
explore an environment. The feet are as much a part of the system controlling vision as are the
muscles attached to the actual eyeball.

Vision occurs within an environment as the observer moves, changing his or her vantage
point. For vision to be useful, the optic patterns at particular vantage points and the changes in
pattern that accompany motion must provide unambiguous information. Evidently, the optic
relations between surfaces, texture, opacity, and illumination provide distinctive optic events
that indicate matters of depth, vantage points, and motion.

Surfaces define objects, objects in turn fall into different types, myriads of classes and
subclasses. However, there is visible order in the many kinds of objects. The principles on
which animals and their motions are based are different than the principles on which plants
are based, which in turn are different than the principles on which the inanimate terrain is
based, and so on. Mountains and coastlines, for example, have particular fractal structures.
Plants tend to be based on the principle of a branching stalk. Among mammals, a plan
involving head, body, and limbs is followed, with variations more matters of proportion than
changes of plan. The classes of objects in the natural world do not admit gradations: there is
no continuum between a dog and a tree, with some objects being more tree than dog and some
being more dog than tree. The world of artificial objects in practice also contains few
gradations: there is no object midway between a dog and a tree. The principles that constrain
natural objects are the inexorable laws of continents, erosion, and evolution. Artificial objects
are less constrained because of whimsy and deliberate eschewing of practicality, but in the
main, perception of types of object has available to it remarkable, detailed information in light
from natural objects and serviceable information, barring deliberate camouflage and staged
decor, in the world of artifice.

Perception requires a vantage point. Consequently, perspective is an ever‐present influence on

perception. Perspective is a clear case of an important aspect of perception: to use perspective,
the perceptual system must in some respects have available to it a capacity for computation. It
is now thought that vision in some fashion engages in several kinds of computations, such as
Fourier analysis and calculus. Perspective is certainly an instance where the raison d'être of
vision's mathematical component is clear. When an object is presented to the vantage point, its
front facet must subtend a larger angle than its rear. If the front face of a cube subtends fifty‐
three degrees at the vantage point, the rear face subtends about half of this. However, when
the front face subtends one degree, the rear face subtends almost that much. The ratio of front‐
to‐rear subtense changes as the subtenses grow and the cube approaches the vantage point. In
order for vision to appreciate that a solid object is not altering its shape as its distance
changes, it must be able to calculate the appropriate ratio at each angular subtense. It
must also relate this to the proportions of the object, for a long block could have a front
face subtend fifty‐three degrees when the rear face subtends one degree. Vision is in fact
responsive to the ratios of angular subtenses and how these are related to an object's
actual angular subtense. Hence, perspective is not just a formal geometry of the
environment but one that vision employs.

Vision has strict limits, despite its ability to employ unambiguous environmental information
and influences from higher brain centers serving recognition or mathematical calculations.
Certain types of objects are entirely conceptual and cannot be perceived. One can define a
category of objects that cannot be perceived, but by definition no instance of it can ever be
perceived. Other instances are “no object” or “an infinite length.” Hence, vision must serve
conception by tuning the observer to some geometrical facts of the environment and to many
types of objects, but comprehension has to go beyond vision. Vision allows metonymy, but
the appreciation of the possible significance of the individual must on some occasions go
beyond what a visual pattern can unambiguously specify.

The study of vision at present has limits, too, that are just as imposing as the limits on vision
itself. The principles used in the study of vision notably include “retinotopic maps,” “modular
organization,” and “specificity of information.” However, if vision succeeds in creating a map
or model of the three‐dimensional environment inside the brain, that cannot explain vision. A
copy is not an understanding. A copy needs some further action, as if by a homunculus, to
make its information known. Further, color cannot be copied at all by any neuronal center.
That is to say, no neuronal center can turn red or yellow. Hence, the search in physiology for
retinotopic organization in higher brain centers cannot be the final goal of theorists of
perception.

Modular organization is evident in the fact that complex visual signals are needed to fire
single cells in higher brain centers. However, analysis of a perceptual input by a single cell is
not possible. No single cell can indicate anything more than its own firing rate or change of
firing rate. A population of cells is needed to support a percept of a complex object. The
different pathways evident in vision, leading to specialized single‐cell detectors, superficially
suggest that vision breaks down the input into different features. In some fashion, these
individual features, each reflected in different pathways, need to be coordinated into a single
percept. Vision needs to know not only that there is something shiny and something furry,
something circular and something square, something still and something moving but that
there is a circular furry moving thing—a tennis ball—and a square, shiny still thing: a sheet of
paper.

Specificity of optical, patterned information is necessary for vision to have something useful
available to it, but the visual system cannot wait to decide whether an incoming pattern x is
sufficiently distinctive. That is, it cannot gather information about other patterns and compare
these with pattern x prior to deciding what pattern x might betoken. Vision must be capable of
responding to patterned information without comparisons. In principle, the very existence of
optical information requires that pattern x be distinctive in comparison to others, but vision
must resonate entirely to pattern x, not to potential comparisons. Hence, distinctive
information sets the conditions under which a visual system is usable, but in the actual
workings of vision as a computational system, comparisons are not present. In principle,
vision must compute, not compare. The distinctions between patterns that make the
computations useful are not straightforwardly reflected in those computations.

In short, vision is an information‐obtaining system using sophisticated connections borne by

relay stations, relying on accurate optical information governed by the laws of an environment
including laws of illumination and media. Vision uses transduction, transmission, mapping,
modular specialization, and pattern computation to regard surfaces, their texture, relation to a
vantage point, and classification by types of surface arrangements.

[See also Picture Perception; Pictorial Semiotics; Receptors; and Umwelt.]

Bibliography and More Information about vision

 Blakemore, C., ed. Vision: Coding and Efficiency. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
 Kosslyn, S. M. Image and the Brain. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.

—John M. Kennedy