Unit 5

States of
Sensation and Perception: The
Consciousness

Visual System
Learning Targets
22-1 Discuss the characteristics of the
energy that we see as visible light, and
describe the structures in the eye that
help focus that energy.
22-2 Describe how the rods and cones
process information, and explain the path
information travels from the eye to the brain.
22-3 Discuss how we perceive color in the
world around us.
22-4 Describe the location and function of
feature detectors.
22-5 Explain how the brain uses parallel
processing to construct visual perceptions.
What light energy is
visible to humans?

The part of the

spectrum visible to
humans is actually
quite small.
We can see light
waves with a
frequency of a little
less than 400nm and
a little more than
700nm.
 What are characteristics of
light waves?

frequency (wavelength) amplitude (height)

 What information do light waves
give us?

Wavelength: what hue Amplitude: how bright is

(or color) am I seeing? the color I am seeing?
 1. What Would You Answer?

Your best friend decides to paint her room an

extremely bright electric blue. Which of the
following best fits the physical properties of the
color’s light waves?

A. no wavelength; large amplitude

B. short wavelength; large amplitude
C. short wavelength; small amplitude
D. long wavelength; large amplitude
E. no wavelength; small amplitude
What structures of the eye help
focus the energy?
 What is the
cornea?

The cornea is the

eye’s clear,
protective outer
layer covering the
pupil and iris.

Light enters the

eye first through
the cornea.
 What is the
pupil?

The pupil is a
small adjustable
opening in the
center of the eye
through which light
passes.
What is the iris?

The iris is a ring of

muscle tissue that
forms the colored
portion of the
eye around the
pupil and controls
the size of the
pupil opening by
expanding and
contracting over
the pupil.
What is the lens?

The lens is the

transparent
structure
behind the pupil
that changes
shape
to help focus
images on the
retina.
 How does the lens change shape?

To focus the rays, the lens changes its curvature and

thickness in a process called accommodation.

If the lens focuses the image on a point in front of the

retina, you see near objects clearly but not distant
objects. This nearsightedness—myopia—
can be remedied with glasses, contact lenses, or
surgery.
Hyperopia- farsightedness – is a result of the lens
focusing light past the retina.
 What is the
retina?

The retina is the

light-sensitive
inner
surface of the eye,
containing
the receptor rods
and cones plus
layers of neurons
that begin the
processing of
visual information.
 Can you name the structures of the eye?

Try to name the first five structures you have learned in the
order which light passes through them.
 Where is the
retina located?

The retina is along

the back of the
eye and contains
the sense receptor
cells (rods and
cones) that will
receive the
incoming light
waves.
What happens in
the retina?

Light waves are

transduced into
neural impulses by
the rods and
cones, then
passed to the
bipolar cells and
the ganglion cells.
 What are rods?

The rods are retinal

photoreceptors that
detect black, white, and
gray, and are sensitive
to movement.

Rods are necessary

for peripheral and
twilight vision, when
cones don’t respond.
 What are some characteristics of rods?

Rods are located along the retina’s outer periphery.

Rods remain sensitive in dim light, and they enable

black-and-white vision.

Rods have no hotline to the brain…they share connections

to a single bipolar cell sending a combined message to the
brain.

Rods are sensitive to faint light and peripheral motion.

 What are cones?

Cones are retinal

photoreceptors that are
concentrated near the
center of the retina and
function in daylight or in
well-lit conditions.

Cones detect fine detail

and create color
sensations.
 What are some characteristics of cones?

Cones cluster in and around the fovea.

In dim light, cones become unresponsive and we are

unable to see color.

Many cones have their own hotline to the brain: One

cone transmits its message to a single bipolar cell, which
relays the message to the visual cortex (where a large area
receives input from the fovea).
 How many dots do you see at once?

Look at or near any of the twelve black dots and you can
see them, but not in your peripheral vision.
What is the fovea?

The fovea is the

central focal point in
the retina, around
which the eye’s
cones cluster.

This is the area of

greatest visual
acuity… or
sharpness of focus.
 What is the
optic nerve?

The optic nerve is

comprised of the
axons of the
ganglion cells.

It leaves through
the back of the eye
and carries the
neural impulses from
the eye to the brain.
 What is the
blind spot?

The optic disk is the

point at which the
optic nerve leaves
the eye, creating
a “blind” spot
because no receptor
cells (rods or cones)
are located there.
 Can you find the blind spot of your eye?

Close your left eye, look at the spot, and move your
face away until one of the cars disappears. Repeat
with your right eye closed. Did the other car
disappear? Can you explain why?
 2. What Would You Answer?

If you scratch your eye, which structure are you

most likely to damage?

A. pupil
B. iris
C. cornea
D. lens
E. fovea
 What happens to the neural impulse after it
exits the eye?

The optic nerve carries the impulse to the thalamus and

on to the visual cortex of the occipital lobes.
 Can you put it all together now?

Use these two images to guide you as you correctly

label the structures through which light passes.
 Can you put it all together now? Cont.

Can you finish tracing the path of the neural impulse

once it leaves the eye?
 AP® Exam Tip 1

There’s a lot of vocabulary here.

Make sure you understand the location and

function of each part of the eye.

To learn how all the parts fit together, it may help to make
rough sketches and then compare your sketches with
Figures 22.3 and 22.4 in your textbook.

You’ll be better off making several quick, rough sketches

than one time-consuming, nicely drawn one.
 How do we see color?

“ Only mind has sight and hearing;

all things else are deaf and blind.”

Epicharmus, Fragments, 550 B.C.E.

We say that a tomato is red…but is it?

Is red housed in the tomato or in our mind?
If no one sees the tomato, is it still red?
 What is the Young-Helmholtz
trichromatic (three-color) theory?

The theory
that the retina contains three
different types of color receptors (cones)—
one most sensitive to red, one
to green, one to blue—which,
when stimulated in combination,
can produce the perception of any color.
 What about people who cannot see color?

The photo on the left shows how people with red-green

deficiency perceived a 2015 Buffalo Bills versus
New York Jets football game.
“Everyone looks like they’re on the same team,”
said one color-blind fan.
The photo on the right shows how the game looked
for those with normal color vision.
 What are some characteristics of
color blindness?

About one person in 50 is color blind.

Males are more affected since the defect is

genetically sex-linked.

Most people are not actually blind to all colors. They simply
lack functioning red- or green-sensitive cones, or
sometimes both.

Vision is monochromatic (one color) or dichromatic

(two-color) and seems ‘normal’ to them.
 AP® Exam Tip 2

There is typically a question about color blindness on

the AP ® Exam.

It is important to remember that color blindness is most

prevalent in males and that the red-green cone deficiency
is the most common form of color blindness.
What is the Hering opponent-process theory?

The theory that cone photoreceptors are paired

together (red-green, blue-yellow, white-black)
to enable color vision.

Activation of one color of the pair inhibits

activation of the other.

For example, some cells are stimulated by green and

inhibited by red; others are stimulated by
red and inhibited by green.
 The opponent-process theory.

Stare at the center of the flag for a minute.

Then go to the next slide.
The opponent-process theory, cont.

Stare at the black dot above.

What do you see?
 So what happened?

Did you see a red, white and blue

British Union Jack?
Here’s the answer for why the green became red:
First, you stared at green bars, which tired your
green response.
Then you stared at a white area.
White contains all colors, including red.
Because you had tired your green response, only
the red part of the green-red pairing fired normally.
The same happened with the blue-yellow pair and
the black-white pair.
So… how does color processing occur?

The retina’s red, green, and blue cones

respond in varying degrees to different color
1
stimuli, as the Young-Helmholtz trichromatic
theory suggested.

The cones responses are then processed by

2 opponent-process cells, as Hering’s
opponent-process theory proposed.
 What are feature detectors and
where are they located?

Feature detectors are

nerve cells located in
the visual cortex of
the occipital lobe that
respond to a scene’s
edges, lines, angles
and movements.
 But what do feature detectors do?

Feature detectors receive information from individual

ganglion cells in the retina and
pass it to other cortical areas, where
supercell clusters respond to more complex patterns.
How do feature detectors
operate in real life?

In a 2011 World Cup

match, USA’s Abby
Wambach instantly
processed visual
information about
the positions and
movements of
Brazil’s defenders and
goalkeeper and
managed to get the ball
around them all and into
the net.
 What is parallel processing?

Parallel processing is thinking about many aspects of

a problem simultaneously.

This is the brain’s natural mode of information

processing for many functions, including vision.
 How does parallel processing operate?

The brain delegates the work of processing motion, form,

depth, and color to different areas.
After taking a scene apart, the brain integrates these
subdimensions into the perceived image.
 How do we recognize faces using parallel
processing?

To recognize a face, your brain integrates information

projected by your retinas to several
visual cortex areas and compares it with stored
information, thus enabling your fusiform
face area to recognize the face: Grandmother!

Some supercells—actually nicknamed

grandmother cells—do appear to respond very
selectively to 1 or 2 faces in 100.

(Bowers, 2009; Quiroga et al., 2013)

 3. What Would You Answer?

Which perceptual process explains why you can

see varied aspects of your favorite singer’s face
and instantly recognize him or her?

A. selective attention
B. accommodation
C. psychokinesis
D. blindsight
E. parallel processing
 So in the end…. how do we “see”?

As you read these words, the letters reflect light rays onto
your retina, which triggers a process that sends formless
nerve impulses to several areas of your brain, which
integrate the information and decode its meaning. The
amazing result: we have transferred information across
time and space, from our minds to your mind.
That all of this happens instantly, effortlessly, and
continuously is indeed awesome.
Learning Target 22-1 Review

Discuss the characteristics of the energy

that we see as visible light, and describe the structures
in the eye that help focus that energy.

 The hue we perceive in light depends on its

wavelength, and its brightness depends on its
intensity.
 After entering the eye through the cornea, passing
through the pupil and iris, and being focused by the
accommodation of the lens, light energy particles
strike the eye’s inner surface, the retina.
Learning Target 22-2 Review

Describe how the rods and cones process

information, and explain the path information
travels from the eye to the brain.

 Rods and cones convert light energy into neural impulses.

 Cones are found in and around the fovea, rods on the
outer regions. Cones connect to one bipolar cell. Rods
share a bipolar cell.
 Cones are sensitive to detail and color, rods to faint light
and peripheral motion.
 Impulses move through bipolar and ganglion cells through
the optic nerve, create a blind spot, then to the thalamus,
and on to the visual cortex.
Learning Target 22-3 Review

Discuss how we perceive color

in the world around us.

 The Young-Helmholtz trichromatic (three-color)

theory: the retina contains three types of color
receptors. each most sensitive to the wavelengths of one
of either red, green, or blue
 Hering’s opponent-process theory: neurons in the
retina and the thalamus code the color-related
information from the cones into pairs of opponent colors
(red/green, yellow/blue and black/white).
 Color processing occurs in two stages.
Learning Target 22-4 Review

Describe the location and function

of feature detectors.

 Feature detectors, specialized neurons in the

occipital lobe’s visual cortex, respond to specific
aspects of the visual stimulus.
 They receive information from individual ganglion
cells in the retina and pass it to other cortical areas,
where supercell clusters respond to more complex
patterns.
Learning Target 22-5 Review

Explain how the brain uses parallel

processing to construct visual perceptions.

 Through parallel processing, the brain handles

many aspects of vision (color, movement, form, and
depth) simultaneously.
 Other neural teams integrate the results, comparing
them with stored information and enabling
perceptions.