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The visual system is the physiological basis of visual perception (the ability to detect and process light).The system detects, transduces and interprets information concerning light within the visible range to construct an image and build a mental model of the surrounding environment.
The visual system is organized hierarchically, with anatomical areas that have specialized functions in visual processing. Low-level visual processing is concerned with determining different types of contrast among images projected onto the retina whereas high-level visual processing refers to the cognitive processes that integrate information from a variety of sources into the visual ...
The optical path difference between the paths taken by two identical waves can then be used to find the phase change. Finally, using the phase change, the interference between the two waves can be calculated. Fermat's principle states that the path light takes between two points is the path that has the minimum optical path length.
Recent descriptions of visual association cortex describe a division into two functional pathways, a ventral and a dorsal pathway. This conjecture is known as the two streams hypothesis . The human visual system is generally believed to be sensitive to visible light in the range of wavelengths between 370 and 730 nanometers of the ...
The laws of reflection and refraction can be derived from Fermat's principle which states that the path taken between two points by a ray of light is the path that can be traversed in the least time. [36]
Fermat's principle states that the path taken by a ray between two given points is the path that can be traveled in the least time. First proposed by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1662, as a means of explaining the ordinary law of refraction of light (Fig. 1), Fermat's principle was initially controversial because it seemed to ...
The term "line" typically presumes that the light by which the observed object is seen travels as a straight ray, which is sometimes not the case as light can take a curved/angulated path when reflected from a mirror, [5] refracted by a lens or density changes in the traversed media, or deflected by a gravitational field. Fields of study ...
Visual phototransduction is the sensory transduction process of the visual system by which light is detected by photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) in the vertebrate retina.A photon is absorbed by a retinal chromophore (each bound to an opsin), which initiates a signal cascade through several intermediate cells, then through the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) comprising the optic nerve.