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2 - The Travels of a Photon

Natural Image Statistics and the Retina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2021

Gabriel Kreiman
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

And there was light. Vision starts when photons reflected from objects in the world impinge on the retina. Although this may seem rather clear to us right now, it took humanity several centuries, if not more, to arrive at this conclusion. The compartmentalization of the study of optics as a branch of physics and visual perception as a branch of neuroscience is a recent development. Ideas about the nature of perception were interwoven with ideas about optics throughout antiquity and the middle ages. Giants of the caliber of Plato (~428–~348 BC) and Euclid (~300 BC) supported a projection theory according to which cones of light emanating from the eyes either reached the objects themselves or met halfway with other rays of light coming from the objects, giving rise to the sense of vision. The distinction between light and vision can be traced back to Aristotle (384–322 BC) but did not reach widespread acceptance until the investigations of properties of the eye by Johannes Kepler (1571–1630).

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Chapter
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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Barlow, H. (1972). Single units and sensation: a neuron doctrine for perception. Perception 1, 371394.Google Scholar
Helmstaedter, M.; Briggman, K. L.; Turaga, S. C.; Jain, V.; Seung, H. S.; and Denk, W. (2013). Connectomic reconstruction of the inner plexiform layer in the mouse retina. Nature 500, 168174.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kuffler, S. (1953). Discharge patterns and functional organization of mammalian retina. Journal of Neurophysiology 16, 3768.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simoncelli, E.; and Olshausen, B. (2001). Natural image statistics and neural representation. Annual Review of Neuroscience 24, 193216.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yarbus, A. (1967). Eye movements and vision. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar

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  • The Travels of a Photon
  • Gabriel Kreiman, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Biological and Computer Vision
  • Online publication: 05 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108649995.003
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  • The Travels of a Photon
  • Gabriel Kreiman, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Biological and Computer Vision
  • Online publication: 05 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108649995.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Travels of a Photon
  • Gabriel Kreiman, Harvard University, Massachusetts
  • Book: Biological and Computer Vision
  • Online publication: 05 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108649995.003
Available formats
×