Visual Perception.

A treatment of brightness and color vision that undertakes to discuss the relation between psychophysical data and physiological models. Visual Perception explores fundamental topics underlying the field of visual perception, including the perception of brightness and color, the physics of light, and the optics of the eye. Although the text leans heavily on physical and physiological concepts, explanations of the relevant physics and physiology are considered. This book is organized into 16 chapters and begins with an overview of the relationship between information assimilation and the physiology of the visual system based on data gathered both in physiological and perceptual experiments. More specifically, this text discusses the nature of the human perceptual system in terms of the kinds of information that are assimilated from the world, and how this selection of information is governed by the structure of receptors and the neural circuits that are connected to them. The relationships between symbols and their corresponding physical and physiological variables are also examined. Finally, the book addresses the presence of strong lateral inhibition in the visual system and how it fits the concept of evolution. This book is aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, regardless of their academic backgrounds. I. Introduction II. The experiment of Hecht, Schlaer, and Pirenne III. The physics of light IV. Quantal fluctuations V. The action of light on rod pigments VI. The excitation of rods VII. Cones and cone pigment VIII. Color vision I - discriminations among wavelength mixtures IX. Color vision II - retinal color systems X. Color vision III - the perception of color XI. The psychophysiology of brightness - I spatial interaction in the visual system XII. The psychophysiology of brightness - II modulation transfer functions XIII. Brightness and color constancy XIV. Temporal properties of the visual system XV. Stimulus Generalization XVI. Speculations on "higher processes" Text covers key topics in geometrical and visual optics for optometric practice ... features over 300 illustrations, summaries and self-assessment questions, and case studies.