Module 3.

1 VISUAL SYSTEM NOTES:

In this lesson, we will learn about how light enters the eye and reaches the retina. We will also _______________________________
discover how the retina translates light into neural signals and trace its pathway up to the primary _______________________________
visual cortex. We will also explore how we see edges and colors and how the cortical
mechanisms of vision and conscious awareness work together.
_______________________________
_______________________________
How does light enters the eye and reaches the retina? _______________________________
Most of us think that nocturnal animals such as cats and owls can see in the _______________________________
dark, right? However, this belief is wrong because the truth is, no animal can _______________________________
see in complete darkness, but some animals do have special adaptations that _______________________________
allow them to see under very dim light. The light re ected in our eyes from the _______________________________
objects around us is the basis for our ability to see them; if there is no light, _______________________________
there is no vision. _______________________________
Light is sometimes de ned as waves of electromagnetic energy that are _______________________________
between 380 and 760 nanometers (billionths of a meter) in length. _______________________________
Wavelength and intensity are two properties of light that are of particular _______________________________
interest. _______________________________
• WAVELENGTH plays an important role in the perception of color _______________________________
• INTENSITY plays an important role in the perception of brightness _______________________________
_______________________________
Now let's trace and examine how light enters our eyes and reach the retina. _______________________________
1 | IRIS is the donut-shaped bands of contractile tissue which gives our eyes _______________________________
their characteristic color. It is also responsible for the regulation of the light _______________________________
that reaches the retina. _______________________________
2 | PUPIL is the hole in the iris where light enters the eye. The adjustment of _______________________________
the pupil size in response to changes in illumination represents a _______________________________
compromise between sensitivity (ability to detect the presence of dimly lit _______________________________
objects) and acuity (ability to see the details of objects) . _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
BRIGHT LIGHT = CONSTRICTED PUPILS _______________________________
the image falling on each retina is sharper and _______________________________
there is a greater depth of focus (greater range _______________________________
of depth s are simultaneously kept in focus on _______________________________
the retinas) _______________________________
LOW LIGHT = DILATED PUPILS _______________________________
the pupils dilate to let in more light, thereby _______________________________
sacri cing acuity and depth of focus
Figure 3.1 Pupil dilation and
_______________________________
constriction _______________________________
3 | LENS is found behind the pupil which focuses incoming light on the _______________________________
retina. When we direct our gaze at something near, the tension of the _______________________________
ligaments holding each lens in place is adjusted by the ciliary muscles _______________________________
and the lens assumes the natural cylindrical shape which increases the ability _______________________________
of the lens to refract (bend) light: _______________________________
◦ CLOSE OBJECTS = LENS IS BENT = SHARP FOCUS _______________________________
◦ DISTANT OBJECTS = LENS IS FLATTENED = LESS SHARP FOCUS _______________________________
▪ ACCOMMODATION: the process of adjusting the con guration of the _______________________________
lenses to bring images into focus on the retina _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

Prepared by: NABI (Miss Ney) 1 of 7

fi
fi
fl
fi
Eye Position and Binocular Disparity NOTES:
Vertebrates are designed to have two eyes because they have two sides: left _______________________________
and right. By having one eye on each side (the most common arrangement), _______________________________
vertebrates can see in almost every direction without moving their heads. _______________________________
However, some vertebrates like humans, have their eyes mounted side by _______________________________
side on the front of their heads. _______________________________
_______________________________
In evolutionary perspective, predators (humans, owls, lions) generally have _______________________________
front-facing eyes because this enables them to perceive how far away prey _______________________________
animals are while prey animals (birds, squirrels, antelopes) tend to have side- _______________________________
facing eyes to give them a larger eld of vision and the ability to see _______________________________
predators approaching from different directions. _______________________________
The movement of your eyes are coordinated so that each point in your visual _______________________________
world is projected to corresponding points on your two retinas. To accomplish _______________________________
this, your eyes must converge (turn slightly inward); convergence is greatest _______________________________
when you are inspecting things that are close. _______________________________
_______________________________
BINOCULAR DISPARITY the difference in the position of the same image on _______________________________
the two retinas. Binocular disparity is greater for close objects than for distant _______________________________
objects. _______________________________
CHECK IT OUT: Face the farthest wall in the room (or some other distant object) and _______________________________
bring the tips or your two pointing ngers together at arm's length in front of you -- with _______________________________
the backs of your ngers away from you (unless you prefer sausages with ngernails).
_______________________________
Now, with both eyes open, look through the notch between your touching ngertips, but
focus on the wall. Do you see the cocktail sausage between your ngertips? Where did
_______________________________
it come from? To prove to yourself that the sausage is a product of binocularity, make it _______________________________
disappear by shutting one eye. _______________________________
WARNING: Do not eat the sausage! Lol! _______________________________
_______________________________
The Retina and Translation of Light into Neural Signals _______________________________
After light passes through the pupil and the lens, it reaches the retina. The _______________________________
retina converts light to neural signals, conducts them toward the CNS, and _______________________________
participates in the processing of the signals. The gure on the below illustrates _______________________________
the fundamental cellular structure of the retina. It is composed of ve layers _______________________________
of different types of neurons. _______________________________
_______________________________
Figure 3.2 The cellular structure
_______________________________
of the mammalian retina _______________________________
_______________________________
PHOTORECEPTORS: _______________________________
converts light energy into _______________________________
nerve impulses that the _______________________________
brain can understand _______________________________
(phototransduction) _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
AMACRINE CELLS & HORIZONTAL CELLS: specialized for lateral _______________________________
communication (communication across the major channels of sensory input)

Prepared by: NABI (Miss Ney) 2 of 7

fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
 BIPOLAR CELLS: connects the photoreceptors to the ganglion cells NOTES:
RETINAL GANGLION CELLS: communicate both chemically via synapses _______________________________
and electrically via gap junctions _______________________________
_______________________________
There are two types of photoreceptors: _______________________________
RODS CONES _______________________________
• Rod-like receptors which provide • Cone-shaped receptors which _______________________________
twilight vision but do not give color provide color vision (green, blue, _______________________________
vision and red) _______________________________
• SCOTOPIC VISION: predominates • PHOTOPIC VISION: predominates _______________________________
in dim illumination and provides low in good lighting and provides high- _______________________________
acuity (lacks both the detail and acuity ( nely detailed) colored _______________________________
color) perception of the world _______________________________
_______________________________
DISEASE/ DEFICIENCY: Lack of the DISEASE/ DEFICIENCY: Lack of the _______________________________
pigment in the rods, known as rhodopsin pigment in the cones, known as iodopsin
_______________________________
may cause night blindness. may cause color blindness.
_______________________________
_______________________________
Light reaches the receptor layer only after passing through the other four _______________________________
layers. Once, the photoreceptors have been activated, the neural message is _______________________________
transmitted back out through the retinal layers to the retinal ganglion cells. _______________________________
_______________________________
However, this pathway results to two visual problems: _______________________________
( a ) the incoming light is distorted as it passes through the layers _______________________________
SOLUTION: There is an indentation at the center of retina known as fovea, _______________________________
which is specialized for high-acuity vision (for seeing ne details). The _______________________________
thinning of the retinal ganglion cell layer at the fovea reduces the distortion _______________________________
of the incoming light. _______________________________
( b ) there is a spot in our retina where the optic nerve connects, known as _______________________________
blind spot, which has no light-sensitive cells, hence we cannot detect any _______________________________
image in this area _______________________________
SOLUTION: The visual system requires creative solution known _______________________________
as completion ( lling in); the visual system uses the information provided by _______________________________
the receptors around the blind spot to ll in the gaps of our retinal images. _______________________________
_______________________________
From Retina to Visual Cortex _______________________________
Many pathways in the brain carry visual information. By far, the largest and _______________________________
most thoroughly studied visual pathways are the retina-geniculate-striate _______________________________
pathways, which conduct signals from each retina to the primary visual _______________________________
cortex, via the lateral geniculate nuclei of the thalamus. _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

Prepared by: NABI (Miss Ney) 3 of 7

fi
fi
fi
fi
 Figure 3.3 The retina-geniculate-striate
NOTES:
system _______________________________
_______________________________
All signals from the left visual _______________________________
eld reach the right primary _______________________________
visual cortex, either _______________________________
ipsilaterally from the temporal _______________________________
hemiretina of the right eye or _______________________________
contralaterally (via the optic _______________________________
chiasm) from the nasal _______________________________
hemiretina of the left eye -- _______________________________
and that the opposite is true of _______________________________
all signals from the right visual _______________________________
eld. _______________________________
The colors in the illustration _______________________________
indicate the ow of information _______________________________
from various parts of the _______________________________
receptive elds of each eye to _______________________________
various parts of the visual _______________________________
system. _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
How do we see edges? _______________________________
Edge perception (seeing edges) does not should like a particular important _______________________________
topic, but it is. Edges are the most informative features of any visual display _______________________________
because they de ne the extent and position of the various objects in it. _______________________________
_______________________________
Carefully examine the stripes below. The intensity graph in the gure _______________________________
indicates what is there -- a series of homogenous stripes of different _______________________________
intensity. But this is not exactly what you see, is it? What you see is indicated _______________________________
in the brightness graph. _______________________________
Adjacent to each edge, the brighter stripe _______________________________
looks brighter than it really is. The _______________________________
nonexistent stripes of brightness and _______________________________
darkness running adjacent to the edges _______________________________
are called Mach Bands, they enhance _______________________________
the contrast at each edge and make the _______________________________
edge easier to see. _______________________________
_______________________________
It is important to appreciate that contrast _______________________________
enhancement is not something that _______________________________
occurs just in books. Although we are _______________________________
normally unaware of it, every edge we _______________________________
look at is highlighted for us by the _______________________________
contrast-enhancing mechanism of our _______________________________
nervous system. _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
Figure 3.4 Mach Bands _______________________________
Prepared by: NABI (Miss Ney) 4 of 7
fi
fi
fi
fl
fi
fi
 NOTES:
This process allows the image features stand out more clearly by making
_______________________________
optimal use of the colors available on the display or output device. In effect,
_______________________________
our perception of edges is better than the real thing (as determined by
_______________________________
measurements of the physical properties of the light entering our eyes).
_______________________________
_______________________________
How do we see colors?
_______________________________
Color is one of the most obvious qualities of human experience. But before we
_______________________________
discuss how we see colors, let us brie y explain black, white and gray.
_______________________________
◦ BLACK is experienced when there is an absence of light
_______________________________
◦ WHITE is produced by an intense mixture of a wide range of
_______________________________
wavelengths in roughly equal proportions
_______________________________
◦ GRAY is produced by the same mixture with lower intensities
_______________________________
_______________________________
The correct term for colors is hues, but in everyday language we refer to them
_______________________________
as colors, so for the sake of simplicity, I will also do the same. To a large
_______________________________
degree, the perception of an object's color depends on the wavelengths of
_______________________________
light that it re ects into the eye. Most objects absorb the different wavelengths
_______________________________
of light that strike them to varying degrees and re ect the rest. The mixture of
_______________________________
wavelengths that objects re ect in uences our perception of their color, but it
_______________________________
is not the entire story.
_______________________________
O COMPONENT THEORY (TRICHROMATIC THEORY)
_______________________________
▪ PROPOSED BY: Thomas Young | REFINED BY: Hermann von Helmholtz
_______________________________
▪ There are three different kinds of color receptors (cones): red, blue, and
green. Blue receptors are the most sensitive and red the least; the
_______________________________
ability to perceive color requires interaction between at least two types of
_______________________________
photoreceptors. These three colors can then be combined to form any
_______________________________
visible color in the spectrum.
_______________________________
_______________________________
O OPPONENT-PROCESS THEORY
_______________________________
_______________________________
▪ PROPOSED BY: Ewald Hering
_______________________________
▪ There are two different classes of cells in the visual system; one for
encoding color and another class for encoding brightness. The _______________________________
opponent process theory of color vision suggests that our ability to _______________________________
perceive color is controlled by three receptor complexes with opposing _______________________________
actions: _______________________________
_______________________________
◦ red-green complex
_______________________________
◦ blue-yellow complex
_______________________________
◦ black-white complex
_______________________________
▪ According to the opponent process theory, these cells can only detect
the presence of one color at a time because the two colors oppose one _______________________________
another. You do not see greenish-red because the opponent cells can _______________________________
only detect one of these colors at a time. _______________________________
_______________________________
▪ Hering also identi ed complementary colors which are pairs of colors
that cancel each other out (lose hue) and produce white or gray when _______________________________
combined in equal measures. He modeled opponent hues generated by _______________________________
the visual cortex as a result of adaptation through his experiments of _______________________________
complementary afterimages. Let's try to see how it works. _______________________________
_______________________________

Prepared by: NABI (Miss Ney) 5 of 7

fl
fi
fl
fl
fl
fl
Neither component nor opponent processing can account for the single most NOTES:
important characteristic of color vision: color constancy. Color constancy _______________________________
refers to the fact that the perceived color of an object is not a simple function _______________________________
of the wavelengths re ected by it. It is a feature of the human color perception _______________________________
system that ensures that the perceived color of objects remains relatively _______________________________
constant under varying illumination conditions. _______________________________
_______________________________
Cortical Mechanisms of Vision and Conscious Awareness _______________________________
Visual cortex is often considered to be of three different types: _______________________________
◦ Primary Visual Cortex: the area of the cortex that receives most of its _______________________________
input form the visual relay nuclei of the thalamus _______________________________
◦ Secondary Visual Cortex: the area of the cortex that receives most of _______________________________
their input from the primary cortex _______________________________
◦ Visual Association Cortex: the area of the cortex that receives input _______________________________
from the areas of secondary visual cortex as well as the secondary _______________________________
areas of other sensory system _______________________________
Visual information ows from primary visual cortex to the various areas of _______________________________
secondary visual cortex to the areas of association cortex. As one moves up _______________________________
this visual hierarchy, the neurons have larger receptive elds and the stimuli to _______________________________
which the neurons have larger receptive elds and the stimuli to which the _______________________________
neurons respond are more speci c and more complex. _______________________________
_______________________________
What happens when the primary visual cortex is damaged? _______________________________
Damage to an area of the primary visual cortex produces a scotoma (an area _______________________________
of blindness) in the corresponding area of the contralateral visual eld of both _______________________________
eyes. A person with scotoma may experience seeing partially diminished (like _______________________________
the image on the right) or totally degenerated visual acuity. Neurological _______________________________
patients with suspected damage to the primary visual cortex are usually given _______________________________
a perimetry test. _______________________________
_______________________________
However, there are some patients with extensive scotoma who are not _______________________________
conscious of their de cits. One of the factors that contributes to this lack of _______________________________
awareness is completion. For patients with hemianopsia (having scotoma _______________________________
covering half of the visual eld) may see an entire face when they focus on a _______________________________
person's nose, even when the side of the face in the scotoma has been _______________________________
covered by a blank card. _______________________________
_______________________________
What happens areas of secondary visual cortex are damaged? _______________________________
Agnosia is a failure of recognition (gnosis means to know). So when a person _______________________________
fails to recognize a visual stimulus we call it visual agnosia. Visual agnostics _______________________________
can see visual stimuli but they don't know what they are. There are different _______________________________
kinds of visual agnosia: _______________________________
• movement agnosia: dif culty in recognizing movements _______________________________
• object agnosia: dif culty in recognizing objects _______________________________
• color agnosia: dif culty in recognizing colors _______________________________
It is presumed that each speci c visual agnosia results from damage to an _______________________________
area of secondary visual cortex that mediates to the recognition of that _______________________________
particular attribute. Another visual agnosia that we will elaborate on is _______________________________
prosopagnosia. _______________________________
_______________________________
Prepared by: NABI (Miss Ney) 6 of 7
fi
fl
fi
fi
fl
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
 NOTES:
O Prosopagnosia _______________________________
▪ Prosopagnosia refers to visual agnosia for faces. Prosopagnosics _______________________________
usually recognize a face as a face but they have problems recognizing _______________________________
whose face it is. There are even some extreme cases where they cannot _______________________________
recognize their own face. _______________________________
▪ BRAIN PATHOLOGY: Prosopagnosia is often associated with damage _______________________________
to the ventral stream in the area between the occipital and temporal _______________________________
lobes, which is now known as fusiform face area. But take note that _______________________________
this area is also selectively responds to classes of visual stimuli other _______________________________
than faces. _______________________________
_______________________________
There is another rare condition wherein a person experiences dif culty in the _______________________________
ability to see movement progress in a normal smooth fashion. This condition is _______________________________
known as akinetopsia which can be triggered by high doses of certain _______________________________
antidepressants. It is associated with damage to the middle temporal (MT) _______________________________
area of the cortex. To have a glimpse of how it seems like, watch this video. _______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
REFERENCE: _______________________________
Pinel, J. P. (2011). Biopsychology (Eight Edition). Pearson Education, Inc.
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________

Prepared by: NABI (Miss Ney) 7 of 7

fi