Light & Eyes

• Vision begins when light comes into the eye

• Light:
– Focused by the cornea and the lens onto the
retina (which is a thin layer of neural tissue at the
back of the eye; contains photoreceptors)
– Photoreceptors transduce light into neural signals
and pass their signals on to the brain
 Light
• What kind of light do we see?
– Electromagnetic radiation in the range
between about 400 and 700 nanometers
– Though we see only a small portion of the
spectrum, 83% of the light present in our
atmosphere is in this range…we’re making
good use of information available around
us!
Light is changed by objects in
its path
• Light is reflected
• Light is absorbed
• Light rays are bent or refracted
• Light is diffracted
Light is changed by the objects it
encounters
 What makes a good eye?
• Different creatures have different eyes
because the eyes have adapted to the needs
and environment of their owners
• Prey usually have eyes on the sides of their
head so they can see behind them; predators
have eyes in front
• Rabbits have eyes spaced so far apart that
they almost have 360 degree vision
• Marine animals also have eyes far apart on
the sides of their heads - e.g. whales have a
huge blindspot right in front, so they can't see
a boat coming straight at them
• Hawks and other birds have amazing visual
acuity (as much as 8 times that of humans)
 Anatomy of the human eye:
Outside
• Sclera: white part
• Pupil: hole
• Iris: like the aperture on a camera -
comes in several fashionable colors.
The iris has to be dark enough to not
reflect all the light incident on the eye
(this is why albinos have such poor
vision)
Outside
Anatomy of the human eye: Inside
• Cornea: thin, transparent covering of eye ball
• Lens: adjustable focus for near/far (more on
this later)
• Fovea: part of retina corresponding to central
part of visual field. Fovea is latin for "pit", and it
is actually shaped like a pit.
• Optic disc: part of the retina corresponding to
blindspot
• Optic nerve: made up of ganglion cell axons
that exit through the optic disc
• Anterior chamber/aqueous humor: fluid
filled region in front of the lens
• Posterior chamber/vitreous humor: fluid
(jelly-like) filled region behind the lens
Inside
Blind spot?
 Eye Problems?
• Glaucoma: the draining of the aqueous
humor is blocked and pressure is built up
inside the eye which impinges on the blood
vessels and the optic nerve. If caught early, it
can be treated by medication or by surgery
• Cataract: a clouded lens which, if serious,
can be removed and replaced surgically
• Macular Degeneration: a disease of the
retina where the very center of the visual field
(the fovea and close surround) is damaged (a
devastating disease because you can't see
anything that you try to look at - you can only
see periphery, which also makes it impossible
to read)
 Optics
The retina is pink, but when we look into
someone's eye, it looks black - why is that?
You can't see the light reflecting straight off the
retina because your head is blocking the light
that would come in…so we need an
ophthalmoscope to see the inside of an eye
The back of the eye of cats, raccoons and many
nocturnal animals has a reflective coating,
which is why their eyes shine at night. The
reflective coating is useful for detecting as
much light as possible in low-light conditions.
Why do you get "red-eye" in photos taken with a
flash?
 Visual Angle
• Visual angle is a measure of the amount of
the visual field that an object takes up
• Visual angle is not a measure of object size
because:
– objects of the same size, but at different distances
from the eye take up different visual angles
– objects of different sizes at a different distances
from the eye can take up the same visual angle
Visual Angle
 Accommodation
• The process of adjusting the lens in
your eye for different viewing distances
• Almost 70% of the optical power of our
eyes is accomplished by the
cornea…but the cornea can't adjust, so
it's not good for focusing on objects at
different distances
 The focusing power of the
lens can be adjusted
• The lens has muscles attached to it that
change its shape and focusing power
• For viewing distant objects we relax the
muscles; When the muscles are relaxed the
lens has little curvature (is flat)
• For looking at nearby objects, we adjust the
shape of the lens by pulling the muscles
taught so the lens becomes more round
The lens changes shape to focus
on objects at different depths
Accommodation doesn't always work well…
Lens gets rigid with age…
Photoreceptors: Rods & Cones
 Rods and Cones
• Conveniently, rods are rod-shaped and cones
are cone-shaped
• Rods are good for low-light black and white
vision
• Cones only work in good light and can detect
color
• Three types of cones are sensitive to different
wavelengths of light: S-cones to short
wavelength light, M-cones to medium
wavelength light, and L-cones to long
wavelength light
Three Types of Cones
 Retinal distribution of
photoreceptors:
fovea = all cones;
periphery = predominantly rods
 Transduction
• Visual transduction is the process by which
light energy is converted to neural energy (or
electrochemical signals) so that it can be
interpreted by the brain
• When a photon is absorbed by a molecule of
rhodopsin, it changes the chemical state of
the photopigment
• The two parts of the molecule split.
• This change in state is called the
isomerization of the photopigment
• The isomerization sets off a biochemical
chain reaction that eventually leads to an
electrical current flowing across the
membrane
• Once an electrical response is initiated in the
photoreceptors, this signal is relayed to the
bipolar cells, which in turn relay it to ganglion
cells, and thus to the brain
• Absorbing even a single photon of light in a
rod is enough to evoke a regular/reliable
photocurrent
• In fact, Hecht, Schlar and Perrine
demonstrated in the 40's that human subjects
can reliably detect single photons
Photoreceptors pass their signal onto
bipolar cells and then to ganglion cells
Vials of rhodopsin in different bleached states.
(Each vial contains a solution of rhodopsin that has
been exposed to a different amount of light. The
rhodopsin pigment changes color when exposed to
light. This is called bleaching.)
The rods all have the same photopigment, rhodopsin. But there are
three different types of cones in the human retina, each with a
slightly different photopigment.
In the butterfly you can actually see the cone photopigments by just
shining light into the eye. In the human retina, the
photoreceptors are way too small to make a picture like this.
 Light/Dark Adaptation
• Between night and day, light intensity can
change dramatically (by a factor of forty
billion)
• By adjusting the pupil size, we can reduce the
change in light intensity on the retina, but the
number is still really high
• So how can we see in such different light
conditions?
• Our eyes accomplish this feat by switching off
between using rods and using cones
• Rods are good for detecting single photons,
while cones never saturate even at high light
levels--together they can cover the full range
of light intensities
• Switching between rods and cones can take
a while
• Light adaptation is the second most important
function of the retina
• Important point: the brain is not interested in
absolute intensities, but rather in intensities
relative to the ambient light level
This dark adaptation curve shows the switch from
cones to rods (open circles indicate when the
violet test color was no longer noticeable)